


Out and About (Vol II)

by Mars1040



Series: Out and About [2]
Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Alcohol, CYOA, Choose Your Own Adventure, F/M, Female Protagonist, Japan, Japanese Culture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:00:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 29,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26759125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mars1040/pseuds/Mars1040
Summary: Would a professional art thief be considered "professional" without any work? After a month of pretty much being blacklisted in the business and being stuck in a rut after a month of unemployment, you decide to answer a vague job posting. You manage to get a job at Sullivan's Antiquities, and suddenly you find yourself being whisked away to Japan. After meeting your old partner Marcel and his family in the midst of planning a heist, you realize you have no idea what lies in store for you.Voting Ends: 10/24Next Update: 10/31
Relationships: Samuel Drake/Reader
Series: Out and About [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949560
Comments: 5
Kudos: 10





	1. Recap

**Author's Note:**

> First off, thanks for tuning in! Almost two years after I started the last Out and About, the continuation is here!
> 
>  **For those of you who are new:**  
>  This is a Choose Your Own Adventure story, where at the end of every chapter, there will be a link to a link to a straw poll for readers to vote. After a week I'll replace the link to the poll to one of an image of the poll results and I'll post the next chapter the following week. However, since the ending of the last story, my life has gotten much busier. In the event that I miss an update deadline, I will post the story as soon as it's finished. _Please be patient if this happens._  
>  In the finale of the last story, I put up a poll about which choice the readers would like to go back to. [The results of which you can find here.](https://i.imgur.com/kHjdiDd.png) So for this first chapter we will recap everything up until the initial choice while the next chapter will be what comes out of that choice.
> 
>  **For Returning Readers**  
>  First off, welcome back, good to see you. Like I said, this first chapter is a recap. If it's been a while since you've read, I highly recommend you read through again. I've added some new stuff, including a line of dialogue that gets referenced in the next chapter. Hopefully you guys remember where we went wrong the first time so you can help guide our protagonist away from those same choices. That being said, I will present choices that were in the last story, but I will change things up where I can so we do not end up with an identical story.
> 
> Okay! Polls will go live be closed either Saturday or Sunday.
> 
> Enjoy!

Out and About  
**Recap**

You are in a rut, there is no doubt about it anymore. You have not gotten any work for over a month. Your days consist of waking up, heating up frozen waffles and bacon for breakfast, streaming random movies on Netflix until lunch, which usually consisted of microwave food. You then exercise until you get tired, eat dinner and go back to Netflix.

Finally, you have decided that enough is enough, you need to get out of this rut. You need to find another job one way or another…

…because your last rent payment emptied your bank account.

The usual job postings site is not yielding any results, so you decide to try another. The first job posting on this new website piques your interest.

Job Opening for Personal Assistant

Duties Include:  
Organizing files  
Checking email  
Taking notes  
Performing errands

Requirements:  
Willing to travel  
Sense of adventure  
Accepting of smoking  
An open mind

The vagueness and the wording of the ad strike you as odd—especially the "open mind" requirement—but everything else about it seemed professional enough. Heck, you applied to more professional-looking job openings only to find that it was a scam. You send a cover letter to the email provided and hoped that you were not applying to be cast in a porn video…

…again.

Two days later you find out that you have been called in for a job interview for this job. After making sure that the address was legit—it is in a small office building in a decent neighborhood—you put on your most professional outfit and head out.

Upon arriving at the address, you are almost put off by a sketchy-looking man stepping out for a smoke break. At first, you think that this is who would be interviewing you, a chain smoking career criminal. He reminds you of an ex-boyfriend, and memories you would rather forget begin to resurface. You almost immediately get a grip over yourself; since when were you the type to be dissuaded by a guy looking like some escaped convict? Besides, if he were the one interviewing you, he would be waiting for you inside.

You ignore him as you enter the building. There is a security guard who is more interested in his phone than his job. When you get his attention, he is more annoyed than anything. You explain that you have a job interview at this address but do not know what office to go to. He opens an appointment book on his desk, has you sign next to the appointment for your interview and directs you to the office. When you thank him, he rudely shrugs it off and goes back to his phone. You wonder how much money they actually put into security for this building.

When you get to the door, you knock on it and announce yourself.

"Come on in, it's open!" A voice welcomes you.

You open the door and find a medium-sized office with two desks and papers and files everywhere in a disorganized mess. You quickly realize why the job posting was so vague: there is a lot of work to be done here. Sitting at one of the desks was a man who looked like he was approaching his sixties, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and an impressive mustache. There was something familiar about this man.

It takes you a moment, but you do recognize him.

Victor Sullivan, professional smuggler and purveyor of stolen goods. You have never dealt with him personally, but there were plenty of employers who did business with him. Despite your lack of interaction with him, he seems to recognize you as well.

"Well, well, well, I never expected someone like you to answer an ad for a PA," he says.

You shrug in embarrassment as you realize just how low you have hit—this was the reason why you were so uneasy about seeing the shady man outside. A year ago, you were considered one of the best art thieves in the world. Now, here you are, applying for menial labor for minimum wage. This moment definitely qualified as one of the most embarrassing moments in your life.

Part of you wants to run off and have nothing to do with Sullivan, but the rest of you knows that you need this job—especially now that you have a connection back to the business.

"Well, take a seat so we can start this interview." He offers you the chair opposite him. You sit down and regain your composure, getting mentally prepared for the questions he would be asking you. "Now, normally, I would be asking all the usual job interview questions, but I think a different line of questioning is in order." You nod, bracing yourself for the inevitable question. "Why would you apply for a plain old PA job?"

"Because no one else will hire me," you blurt out. Might as well get it over with quick.

"Now why is that?" He presses, mostly out of curiosity.

"I…messed up," you explain, "I left a mark on the forgery to replace the painting on my last job. They knew the painting was stolen the next day."

"So the painting became hot," Sullivan concludes.

You nod. "My client lost a lot of money and made sure I wouldn't get hired again."

"Now that's a damn shame," he gives his sympathies. "But how do you leave a mark on the painting?"

You shrug. "I must've brushed too hard when putting the forgery in the frame. Even though I treated that painting like any other."

"So you smudged it."

You nod again, not knowing what else to say as shame crawls down your back.

"You know, I'm no art expert, but a good painting wouldn't smudge so easily. It sounds to me like your client was too cheap to afford a good forgery and blamed you for the mess."

You are surprised to hear that Sullivan is on your side. You are so used to being turned away and blamed for the incident that you do not expect anyone to hear you out.

"I'll tell you what," he continues, "you're my last interview for this job, and frankly the only one who's cut out for this line of work. So what do you say we start tomorrow morning?"

Your eyes light up. "I got the job?"

"You got the job," he assures you with a smile. He gets up and grabs his jacket from the back of his chair. "Come on, I'll show you out."

You notice him taking a cigar out of his jacket pocket and begin toying with it. As he walks you out of the office, you run into the shady-looking man from downstairs.

Sullivan stops him. "Sam, allow me to introduce our new PA."

"Is she any different from the last ten girls you interviewed?" The man asks.

You give the man a coy look. "I like to think I'm different from the other girls."

He chuckles with good nature as he flirts back, "We'll just have to see, won't we?"

Part of you berates yourself for flirting with him. Memories of your ex-boyfriend begin bubbling up again, but another part of you refuses to care and shoves those memories away. This is the new start you have been waiting for, you should not let your past hold you back.

The man introduces himself as Samuel Drake, Sullivan's partner. Sam is a historian and treasure hunter—just what you would expect from someone in this line of work. The way he spoke about it, you can tell that he loves what he does. You find it admirable for someone to be that enthusiastic about their line of work. Plus, you had to admit, there was something about rugged, convict-looking men that just attracted you. Maybe it is a rebellious thing, but whatever it is, Sam definitely seems like someone you could get to know better.

Then, you remember hearing about Sullivan's partner before—except you recall his name was Nathan Drake. And you definitely remember hearing he was married. You decide to ask for clarification later; saying "But I thought your name was Nathan," would definitely ruin this banter you have going on.

Sullivan clears his throat as a reminder that he is still there. He explains your background to Sam, and he is surprised.

"You don't think you're overqualified?" He asks.

"Maybe I'm more than a personal assistant." You wink.

At this point, Sullivan seems very annoyed by the flirting. You wonder if Sam had flirted with all of the other applicants for the job, or perhaps Sullivan is jealous of the attention.

"Sam, I'll tell you more about her later," Sullivan says, "I'll see you in the office."

Sam nods and looks to you. "I'll be seeing you tomorrow then."

"Of course." You smile at him and accompany Sullivan downstairs.

When the two of you get outside, he lights the cigar almost immediately. "I've been waiting all day to smoke one of these. The landlord is picky when it comes to smoking in his building. He does random inspections to make sure no one does it. Sam and I almost got evicted when our office reeked of tobacco."

“If you’re both smokers, then why rent here?” You wonder.

"We had to find a new place quickly," he explains. "We were interviewing for a PA in our old office, when Sam flat out told one of the girls that we were criminals. She called the cops faster than you could say 'evicted'." He takes a drag from his cigar. "Of course, we weren't breaking any laws so we weren't arrested, but we did have to leave before we had any real attention on us. This was the first place that accepted us."

"So was Sam doing the interviews before?" You ask.

"Yeah, he wasn't making any progress," Sullivan tells you. "Kept flirting with the girls. I had to step in so we could actually hire someone."

Now you understand why he was so eager to get you away from Sam. "No wonder you were so salty, I thought maybe that you were jealous of all the attention."

Sullivan laughs at the prospect. "Sweetheart, I don't need to be jealous of Sam." He takes another drag from his cigar. "No offense, but none of the girls that we interviewed were…worth the trouble."

"In what way?"

"For one thing, they were…a bit lacking in the intelligence department," he explains.

"Well, to be honest, the job posting was suspicious," you point out. Then you realize that you were one of the people who answered it. "Wow, what does that say about me?"

"You were desperate," he tells you in an attempt to make you feel better. "Believe me, that's a few steps above 'stupid'."

To your surprise, you do feel a little better—it was true after all.

"Anyway," he offers his hand out for you to shake. "I'll be seeing you tomorrow, bright and early at ten o'clock."

You smile and shake his hand. "Thank you Mr. Sullivan."

"Please, my friends call me Sully," he insists.

"Okay, thank you Sully." You bid him farewell and head home.

When you get home, you get started on dinner. However, instead of booting up Netflix, you decide to do something different. You think about Sam and his enthusiasm about history and treasure hunting and decide that you want to impress him. You set up your computer to do research on various archeological websites. You also hoped that you would get involved in any jobs they came across; after all, you are an experienced art thief, your skills would definitely come in handy on any job.

The next morning you arrive at the office on time to find it locked with the lights off. For a moment, you wonder if Sully had forgotten that he had told you ten o'clock, or that he expected you to be late. You have no way of contacting either Sam or Sully since you had not gotten their cell phone numbers—you make a mental note of getting them. With nothing else to do you decide to wait until someone shows up. Sure enough, after a few minutes Sully arrived with a tray of three coffees in his hand.

"Hey, I wasn't sure if you were a morning person so I brought you some coffee," he offers.

You already had coffee at home but you are not about to turn down his kindness—plus you do not think there is such a thing as too much caffeine.

He takes his keys out of his pocket to unlock the door. "Sam's not much of a morning person so I have a cup of coffee ready for when he comes in, whenever that is."

When Sully opens the door, he places the tray on his desk before tossing his jacket off and sitting in his chair. You take off your own jacket and place it on the back of the chair where you sat for your interview the previous day. You see him reach down and open a mini-fridge that was hidden from plain view. He takes out a carton of creamer to pour in his coffee. You take a better look around the office and find that there is a microwave hidden beneath a pile of books near Sam's desk. Strangely enough, you do not see any type of coffee brewer despite seeing the much more expensive mini-fridge and microwave.

When you ask about a coffee brewer, Sully replies, "Our last one broke down, we just haven't gotten around to buying a new one."

"Maybe you should," you advise as you take your cup. "You'd save money on coffee."

He nods in agreement. "Yeah, the coffee shop around the corner raised their prices a while back."

You start drinking after adding milk and sugar and you ask about what to do first.

"We could clean up this place for starters," he says. "We could start with my side of the office, Sam gets picky when it comes to his side."

"Let me guess, it's an 'organized mess'," you joke.

"That's right," Sully tells you. "I think he's just too goddamn stubborn to let anyone else touch it."

"I'm that way too, kinda," you admit, "but it's nothing work related, just my personal stuff." Your heart skips a beat when comparing yourself to Sam.

When the two of you finish your coffee, you start work on organizing the various papers around his desk. Eventually, Sam comes trudging in, muttering his "good mornings".

"Good morning!" You smile at him, hoping that you would brighten his day.

You are disappointed when he does not look back at you, and instead groans an incoherent response. He grabs a cup of coffee and sticks it in the microwave.

As you and Sully work on the desk, you find yourself stealing glances at the treasure hunter, but then you get a grip over yourself. You are not a school girl and Sam is not the older boy you have a crush on. He is essentially your boss and you knew that getting romantically involved with your employers never ends well. Still, you know that it will be hard trying to control yourself.

After you and Sully have been making progress on cleaning up his desk, he decides now would be a good time for a smoke break. He invites you along, but you decline, wanting to spend some time alone with Sam, as dangerous as that may be. He leaves you to your work. For the next few minutes it is just you sorting papers and Sam drinking his coffee at his desk.

Despite your best not to, you still catch yourself looking at Sam; then you see him taking out a flask and pouring some of the contents in his coffee. You freeze. What was inside the flask had to be alcohol—there was nothing else it could be. You have been watching him practically since he came in; all of his behavior could have easily been because he is hungover.

It quickly becomes the elephant in the room and you feel the need to acknowledge it. "Are you hungover?"

Sam almost chokes on his coffee when he hears this. "No, no, why do you ask?"

"I just saw you pour alcohol in your coffee."

Embarrassed, he stumbles around the issue until finally, he admits, "Fine, I sneak a little alcohol now and again."

You frown. "That's not good."

"Now, I don't do it all the time," he begins getting defensive. "Just when…"

As he stumbles around again, you can tell that he is very uncomfortable with the issue. You do not know him that well, so you decide that it is not your place to call him out on it.

"Okay," you stop him. "You have your reasons."

You return to work silently, but you cannot help but think about Sam's problem. No one drinks for no reason—there must be something that he is hiding. Then, you think back to Nathan Drake, and how he is related to Sam. For all you know Sam and Nathan could be the same person, changing his name for some reason. Nathan was said to be married, so perhaps he wanted to get out of his marriage—or perhaps something terrible happened to his wife so Nathan cut all ties to forget and went as far as changing his name.

You shake your head and mentally scold yourself for letting your imagination run away with itself. If the situation were that extreme, Sam would not keep the surname "Drake." Still, you wondered if "Nathan Drake" was the reason why Sam began drinking.

After a while, Sully came back. "I hope you two kids behaved yourselves while I was gone."

"No," you begin. Out of the corner of your eye, you see Sam freeze—afraid, perhaps, of you telling Sully that he was drinking; although that is not your intention at all. "We had a quickie right after you left."

When you look to wink at him, you see Sam melt in relief as he plays along. "Yeah, sorry Victor. But you know what they say—morning sex is the best sex."

Sully chuckles, "It's not morning sex unless you're just getting out of bed."

The rest of the day is uneventful as you and Sully continue to work his side of the office. The three of you order take-out for lunch, making small talk as you eat. You manage to show off your newfound archeological knowledge without coming off as bragging. You study Sam's reaction and he seems impressed by you.

You and Sully finish organizing his side of the office not long after lunch. When you consider starting work on Sam's side, part of you wants to put if off until tomorrow since it seems like it will take far longer. Then again, today, he did not really "wake up" until around lunch time, so you might as well start now—or when Sam comes back from his most recent smoke break.

"Why don't we just call it a day?" Sully tells you, "You can get started on Sam's side of the room tomorrow."

You look over your shoulder at Sam's empty seat. "Wouldn't we just start the same time tomorrow?"

"Nah," he shrugs it off, "I'll just tell Sam to come in early, so he'll be ready to work by ten or eleven tomorrow."

You nod. "Okay, if you're sure it'll work."

As you grab your jacket to leave, Sully stops you. "You know, I notice how you're looking at Sam."

You blush in embarrassment. "I guess I don't do a good job of hiding it."

He shakes his head and leans on his desk. "Just a word of advice—Sam isn't a very…accessible person. I don't remember him ever having a stable relationship in his life—romance-wise anyway." You are about to speak up, but he stops you. "I don't care what you see in him or anything, it's none of my business. Just be careful, okay?"

"Sully, I'm not going to pursue a relationship with him," you assure him. "I'm attracted to him—that's pretty obvious—but I've been in the business long enough to know not to make it personal with your employers."

"You know how many people I've heard that from?” He sighs. “And how many people made it personal?"

"Well _I_ have a proven track record.” You cross your arms confidently. “I even turned down one of the biggest playboys in the business."

Sully raised his eyebrows. "Let me guess—Marcel Lister." You frown slightly at the correct guess. "The most attractive feature on him, I've heard, was his money. There wasn't much else to go for, unless you're into stuck-up rich brats."

You have to agree, there is not anything you find attractive about Marcel. The only reason why Marcel has a "playboy" reputation is because he tends to sleep with his female partners.

Still, you feel the need to stick up for him. “He’s a nice guy. Good to work for…if you don’t mind him hitting on you all the time.” You then change the subject back to Sam, "I'll tell you what, if I do get into a failed relationship with Sam, you're more than welcome to say, 'I told you so.'"

He shrugs. "Alright, I'll see you in the morning."

You bid Sully goodbye and head downstairs. When you get downstairs, you see Sam finishing his cigarette.

"Hey," he talks to you before you can say anything to him, "thanks for not telling Victor about…you know."

"Of course," you assure him, "you don't become successful in this business by being a snitch."

He laughs. "Right, right. By the way, Victor told me about what happened to you—"

"Forget it," you dismiss it.

"I mean it sucks—"

"Yeah, but it's not like talking about it's going to change anything," you tell him.

"Alright." He backs off and stamps out his cigarette. "So, you're finished for the day?"

"That's right, tomorrow we'll start on your side of the office."

He smirks. "So we'll be working together, that's what you're saying."

You cannot help but smile. "Well, yeah."

"I'm looking forward to it." His words make your heart flutter. "You want me to walk you to the end of the block?"

You take him up on the offer, willing to take any opportunity to talk to him.

At long last, you decide to bring up Nathan Drake. "So, I heard that Sully's partner was someone named 'Nathan Drake,' any relation?"

He sighs and says with slight annoyance, "That would be my little brother."

You regret asking when you see his reaction. "I'm sorry, do you two not get along or…"

"No, no, I'm sorry," he apologizes. "I've been in prison for thirteen years and he's gotten a head start on me with his own treasure hunting career."

You understand immediately. "It must be hard hearing about your younger brother's accomplishments."

"You have no idea," he mutters.

Then, it occurs to you, "Wait, is that why you 'sneak alcohol'?"

He is uneasy about the subject matter, you are about to drop it when he responds, "It's a little bit of that."

You wonder if he actually wants to talk about it. When you ask, he politely declines.

"You're a personal assistant, not a shrink," he insists. You try to reply, but he continues, "Listen, I appreciate you wanting to help me, but this is something I have to deal with on my own, okay?"

You want to tell him that this is not something he can handle by himself, but you realize you do not know him very well to tell him. Instead, you decide to drop the subject entirely. You bid him goodbye and head home.

Upon returning home, you make yourself dinner and continue doing archeological research. You have to admit, archeology is just as interesting—if not even more so—as the history behind the paintings you used to steal. Even if you and Sam do not work out—which, to be honest, is extremely likely to you—you are glad to have met him to get into this sort of thing. You only wish that you got into this kind of stuff sooner.

The next day when you arrive at the office, the lights are on, so you knock on the door to alert whoever is inside to your presence.

"Come in," Sam's voice is loud and clear.

You enter and you find him looking at papers on his desk in an attempt to clean up. It appears that Sully's strategy in telling Sam to arrive earlier has worked, he does not appear to look tired in the slightest.

"Hey," he begins, sounding annoyed. "Victor told me yesterday that you'd be in two hours ago. Then I found this note saying that he lied to me to get me up early," he holds up an index card with some writing that you cannot make out.

"Sorry, I should've warned you yesterday," you apologize as you shrug out of your jacket.

Sam realizes his tone and pulls back, "No, no, I'm sorry. It's not your fault—I'm just venting." He gestures to the papers in front of him, "I figured I'd get a head start since I'm here so early."

The two of you get to work rather quickly. You find the head start helped tremendously, the papers on his desk are partially organized, all you really need to do is sort them into folders. The two of you make some small talk whilst working; mostly about the papers and what kind of research he was doing.

Around eleven o'clock, Sam receives a text message from Sully, who had yet to show up. As he stops to read and reply to the message, you come across what seems to be a recent message to Sam. The message reads:

Sam,

Just thought I'd drop you a line. Nadine and I are in Japan working on something for a client. It's a big payout so I thought you'd want a piece of the action. But fair warning: this might get a little dangerous. I suspect the Yakuza are involved and Nadine definitely does not want to go out of her way to rescue you again. I, on the other hand, would not mind the help. Just something to think about.

-Chloe

But what really catches your attention is the paper clipped behind it. It was a photocopy of a painting from feudal japan—the Kamakura period if you were not mistaken. It depicts a samurai on a shore holding an immaculate-looking sword, which appears to be the main focus of the painting.

"Victor's not coming in until later," Sam finally says. "He says he's getting lunch with someone, so we might as well get something by ourselves." He notices you looking at the picture. "You know what that painting is?"

"It's a twelfth-century Japanese painting," you explain in layman's terms. "Around this time, the Japanese art mostly used narrative scrolls—you know, where they tell a story. This kind of reminds me of that, only there's no story, it's like an ending."

Sam is legitimately impressed with your knowledge. "A friend of mine sent that to me and I did some research for her. The man in the picture is supposed to be Minamoto Yoritomo, founder of the Kamakura shogunate—that's a time period where—"

"—Japan was a military dictatorship," you finish. " _I_ know that, I didn't know _you_ knew that."

He acts hurt, "Are you insinuating that I don't do my research?"

He pulls out a book out of one of the piles behind him. The book is titled "Kamakura Shogunate" and from what you can see by flipping through it, it details the culture of Japan from 1185 to 1333. Sam flips the book open to a page with a post-it sticking out of it. Half the page is taken up by an illustration of a samurai sword that looks identical to the one in the painting.

"This, is what she's after, Minamoto's Katana," he tells you. "This thing's been lost for years, almost to the point where no one believes it really exists."

"It'd be worth a fortune," you realize. You turn to him in disbelief. "Why aren't you in Japan helping your friend?"

"Last time I helped her, I ended up being held prisoner by an Indian warlord for weeks," he explains almost too casually. "And when we finally got the treasure, she ended up giving it to the government for way less than we could have gotten for it," he definitely seems irked at this. "So, all in all, not worth the trouble. Besides, even with this information, there's still no confirming that it actually exists. For all I know, we'd end up on some wild goose chase and pissing off the Japanese mafia while we're at it."

With this information dump, you have to admit that Sam has good reason not to join his friend. And if you are honest with yourself, you are slightly afraid that he and this "Chloe" are more than friends. Luckily, it seems to you that the two of them keep to a professional relationship.

"Anyway," he yawns as he stretches. "I think we should just go ahead and get lunch now. I know an outdoor café we can go to, unless you just want take-out again."

"That outdoor café sounds nice," you say.

Going to the outdoor café almost seems like a date with him. Although it would be better for your relationship not to escalate, despite your attraction, you decide that it would be nice to go on a date for the first time in years.

"Outdoor café it is," he confirms.

The two of you grab your jackets and head outside. The café is only a few blocks away from the office. The two of you sit down and are attended to by a server relatively quickly. You order your drinks and strike up conversation.

"So, what's off-limits in terms of conversation?" You ask.

He is confused. "What do you mean?"

"Well, when I go on a date, the first thing I do is ask what not to talk about," you explain. "It makes things a lot easier."

"A date, huh?" He mutters to himself, "I haven't actually been on a date in…” He trails off, almost embarrassed to finish the sentence. “..a while.”

You are surprised. "Really? I thought you'd get more action than that."

He lets out a laugh at your comment. "No, no, I can get plenty of action. It's just, between jobs, it's kinda hard to date in our line of work. It's easier to just hook up for one night and that's it."

"I hate those," you growl. "It might be different for guys, but I don't like a guy I barely know sticking his dick in me."

"There goes my evening plans," he jokes.

You laugh along with him, before continuing, "Now, really, what's off-limits?"

He thinks for a moment, "For one thing, the alcohol—" you find that to be a given, "—that thirteen-year prison stint I told you about yesterday—" once again, another given, "—and my brother."

That last one, you are confused about. "You don't want me asking about your brother?"

"Yeah, it's just a subject I don't like talking about," he explains.

"So what about that Indian warlord from before?" You inquire, "You're willing to talk about that?"

"Yeah, he nearly killed me," he tells you. "But my friend—the same one who's in Japan right now—she went and saved me."

"Chloe, right?"

He nods. "I can see why my brother liked her so much."

"Hey, I thought we weren't talking about your brother," you point out.

"No, you're not allowed to ask me about my brother," he clarifies. "I can talk about him all I want."

You let out a laugh. "That wasn't what we agreed on. I said 'off-limits,' you said 'my brother,' so you can't bring him up at all." You then lean forward as another idea comes to your head. "As a matter of fact, every time you bring him up again, I should be able to ask a question about it. Deal?"

He looks at you, more amused than anything. "Fine. Deal. Now let's talk about you. Do you date?"

"Now and then," you answer. "I like my solitude but it's nice to have a boyfriend once in a while."

He nods in understanding as you talk. "So what usually happens? Do you get bored of them or do they get sick of your lifestyle and dump you?"

You roll your eyes. "You can word that a little better."

He realizes that what he said. "Sorry, that came off as rude, didn't it?"

"No wonder you don't date," you tease. "You probably only have enough charm to get them into bed."

Sam is about to retort when the server returns with your drinks. The two of you give your food order and the server leaves once again.

"I have more charm than you think," he finishes his thought. "I got you to go on a date with me, didn't I?"

You laugh. "This doesn't count! If I wasn't working for you, we wouldn't be here!"

"Yet here we are," he points out. "And I gave you the option for us to get takeout in the office. You're the one who wanted to come here."

You curse inwardly as you realize he is right. You wanted to come out with him because you like him, despite knowing that you should not get involved with your employer.

Sam grinned smugly as he took out a cigarette. "I'll chalk that up as a victory." He pauses as he begins to light the cigarette. "You don't mind if I smoke, do you?" You shake your head as he resumes lighting his cigarette. "Well, you should be okay with smoking, it was in the job ad, after all. I had to make sure Victor and I weren't getting a whole lecture when we started lighting up."

"Wait, so you wrote the ad?"

"Yeah, after Victor started doing the interviews, I started to regret it," he explains. "Most of the girls were…really stupid. Hell, one of them were willing to screw me and Victor to get the job."

You cannot help but laugh out loud at this, despite being in the same pool of girls who answered the ad. "Well that's what happens when your job posting is vague like that, all sorts of weirdos come out."

"Well, consider my lesson learned."

Then, there is something that occurs to you, "Hey, if you don't mind me asking, why did you guys need a PA?"

Sam puffs on his cigarette. "It's to give the business…a sort of front. Victor changes offices more times than he changes shoes, so it's hard to find us. Plus the two of us get into dangerous situations that either ends with our phones getting destroyed or incapacitates us to a point where we miss out on potential clients."

"That last one sounded a little too specific," you notice. "Was that what ended up happening once?"

He nods. "I was getting tied up in India—both literally and figuratively—and Victor was doing some other business in…Hong Kong I think it was? When we finally get together again, we find out that a huge client was trying to get contact with us for a job with a heavy payout. Of course, by the time we get in contact with said client, he already hired someone else for the job." He leans back in his chair. "I'm surprised he's never thought of it when he and Nathan—" he freezes when he realizes what he had just said. "Damn it."

"Well you know the deal," you tease.

"Yeah, yeah," he sighs. "Ask away."

"What happened between you guys for you to act like this?" You ask.

"No, nothing," he insists. "I love my brother, I'm happy that's he's accomplished so much and that he's got a family—hell, I love my niece to bits." His eyes float downward. "It's just…for all of his accomplishments, I was supposed to be there with him. It wasn't supposed to be just 'Nathan Drake' it was supposed to be 'The Drake Brothers'. Every time I hear about Nathan, it's just a cruel reminder of what I've lost."

Seeing Sam so downtrodden like this makes you regret asking. You can see why he drinks. He did not miss just thirteen years of his life, he missed thirteen years of his brother's life as well.

"I'm sorry," you apologize. "I didn't know—"

"Now you do," he simply says. "Now can we talk about something else?"

Fortunately, the date recovers from the mood whiplash and the two of you make more small talk, cracking jokes and having a good time. During the meal, however, Sam gets a message from Sully.

"What is it?" You ask.

"Victor brought whoever he was having lunch with to the office," Sam informs you. "Probably a potential client if he's telling me about it."

The two of you finish your lunch and leave after you pay the bill. When you return to the office, you see a dark-skinned woman sitting in the chair opposite Sully. You are about to greet her when you realize that Sam has frozen in his tracks. The way the woman looks at him is not very pleasant. These two have clearly had history between them.

Sully clears his throat to diffuse the tension. "Nadine, I'd like to introduce you to our new PA."

Nadine. That name was familiar to you, but it does not immediately ring a bell.

When Sully introduces you, she stands up to offer a handshake. "Nadine Ross."

When you accept the handshake, you find that she has a very strong grip, causing you to yelp, "Ow!"

"Sorry, I have a firm grip," she apologizes as she releases your hand.

"Kind of an understatement if you ask me," you respond as you rub your hand.

Then Sam finally speaks up, "Chloe's not with you?"

With the mention of Chloe, you realize who Nadine is. She was mentioned in Chloe's note to Sam, so she must be her partner. But isn't she supposed to be in Japan?

"This is about her," Nadine tells him.

Sam offers you the seat at his desk as Nadine begins to tell her story. The short version is that whilst looking into Minamoto's Katana, the two women had caught the attention of the Yakuza. Chloe got careless and ended up becoming their prisoner.

"I'm coming to you because you owe her, Drake," she says to Sam.

"Do you see me arguing?" Sam replies. "Did you make any progress on finding the katana?"

She looks away in what appears to be shame. "None that I could see."

"You two had to have stumbled upon something," Sully insists. "After all, they had to have targeted the two of you. Chloe's a capable woman, if this was a random kidnapping, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"I don't know what to tell you Victor." Nadine sits down. "It seemed like we were running into a bunch of dead ends."

Sully sighs. "It looks like we'll need to look at the progress you girls have made so far."

"It's all with our client in Japan," she tells them.

"Then it looks like we're going to Japan." Sully looks to you. "Do you mind holding the fort down for us?"

Before you can reply, Sam speaks up for you, "Actually, Victor, she can help us with this." He finds the message from Chloe and shows Nadine the painting. "You never figured out what this painting means, did you?"

"No," she replies.

"This is where she—” he gestures to you “—comes in. If we can figure this out, then we can beat the Yakuza to the sword and save Chloe."

"Are you sure you're not thinking with your dick?" Nadine accuses. "You were just out with her after all."

You feel very insulted by the comment. Then again, this seems like a delicate situation; after all, the Yakuza are infamous for their cruelty, and selling captive women into the human trafficking business. The more time you waste, the less time Chloe has, and Nadine must know it.

"It's not that," you begin calmly, choosing to be the bigger person. "I am an art thief with a degree in art history to boot. If I had the actual painting here, I could tell you almost exactly what the going price would be for it. I already know what the history is just by looking at this photocopy of it."

You look at the picture again and something catches your eye. The painting appears to continue on past the scroll. Before, you had simply assumed that the copier had cropped off the edge, but there was a portion of a wall or some kind of backdrop right around the cutoff. And it is hard to tell, but there seems to be some sort of tear at the edge.

"Hey, you okay?" Sam snaps you out of your thoughts.

"There's more to this," you say.

"What did you say?" Nadine asks.

"There's more to this painting," you clarify. You take the picture out of Sam's hand and put it on Sully's desk for everyone to see. "It's really hard to see, but this was torn," you inform them. "I told Sam it seemed like it was the ending of the story and I think it is. If you and Chloe were onto something, it has to do with this painting."

"Our client was the one who got us this copy," Nadine explains. "He said it belongs to some Yakuza figurehead."

"Who is this genius anyway?" Sully wonders.

"Some Polish playboy," she says. "Marcel…something or other."

You and Sully know exactly who she was talking about. Marcel Lister, well-known billionaire playboy. His only attractive feature is his money, which he loves using. He will spare no expense getting the best and giving his partners whatever they need to get the job done. The only downside—besides his aforementioned tendency to flirt with his partners—is that Marcel tends to take all the credit for the job for himself. Most people know this going in, and only work for him for the money. Marcel had no problem getting a photograph of this painting, however, he tipped off whoever it was trying to get this katana.

"Do us a favor and get the name of this figurehead so we can get a head start on this," Sully instructs her. "And you can tell Marcel to expect us in Japan tomorrow."

"Will do," she tells him with a professional tone. "I'll send you a text message tonight." She begins to leave, but pauses before she does so, "And…thanks."

"Thank us when we get the job done," he tells her.

With that, she leaves. You cannot help but feel irked about the fact that she did not apologize for what she said.

When you bring it up, Sam brushes it off. "It's sort of how she is. I was lucky to get an apology out of her after a few weeks of working together."

"What about?" You wonder.

"She thought I sold our treasure from India," he explains. "Turns out, she just misplaced it. Don't know how you misplace something that valuable, but there it is. And I'm convinced that Chloe put her up to apologizing."

"Okay, if we can stop beating around the bush for a minute," Sully began. "We need to do some research before we dive head-first into this job."

"Right," you agree. "First off, do you know the artist who made this?" You refer to the photocopied painting.

Sam shakes his head. "The original email said that this was done by 'anonymous.’"

You frown. "That's actually pretty common with anything nearly a millennium old. Where's that Kamakura book?"

Sam gives you the book and you begin to look through it to find if there is some kind of art section that may give you a clue as to where the rest of the scroll is. After a while, Sully gets a text from Nadine telling them who owns the part of the scroll that they know about.

"It belongs to some guy named 'Uematsu'," Sully says. "Doesn't seem like Marcel knows much else."

"What a surprise." You roll your eyes.

Sam is confused, "You guys know who this 'Marcel' is?" You and Sully explain who Marcel is to Sam. When you are finished, he frowns. "Sounds a lot like Rafe, if you ask me."

"A few steps up from Rafe if you ask me," Sully tells him. "Marcel isn't a sociopathic man-child like he was."

The only person that comes to mind for you when you hear that name is Rafe Adler. The CEO of an international corporation who ventures into treasure hunting in his free time. He had gone out of his way to contact you for potential jobs in the past, but none that you felt were worth the trouble. You also remember that he went missing over a year and a half ago.

"Marcel isn't bad to work with," you put in. "He's just snobby…and a little too flirty…and kind of dumb. But he doesn't get involved where he isn't supposed to."

Somehow, you get the impression that this does not endear Marcel to Sam. Instead, he simply drops the subject and goes out for a smoke. While he is gone, Sully takes this opportunity to talk to you.

"I see you two went out for lunch together," he points out.

"Yeah," you reply, crossing your arms.

"Let me guess, he suggested it."

Come to think of it, the café was Sam's idea.

"He sure seems to have taken a liking to you," Sully adds.

"What are you trying to say?" You ask, a little irritated.

"We just started working here, you've got a good reputation and a good eye," he explains. "I just don't want to see a potential partnership get ruined over something petty like relationships."

"It's not a relationship," you assure him. Then, you decide to take the conversation into a different direction, "You really see potential in our partnership?"

He nods. "If I didn't I wouldn't have taken you on in the first place."

This makes you happy, however, it also worries you. You like Sam, and you realize he likes you back. But remembering Sully's warnings about getting involved with him, you realize if the relationship fails, it will not only ruin your personal relationship with Sam, but your partnership with him and Sully.

This gives you something to think about.

After a while, Sam returns to the office. "So what now?"

"There's not much we can do right now," Sully informs him. "I know someone who can do some digging and find out more about this 'Uematsu' guy. In the meantime, we might as well get some rest. We'll have to take off early if we want to get to Japan in a timely manner."

"There's no chance we can take a commercial flight, is there?" Sam wonders.

"Not a single one," Sully tells him. "You can go home, I'll lock up."

You grab your jacket and you and Sam start to head downstairs.

"You should probably pack a few books," he advises you. "It's a twelve-hour flight to Japan."

Your face pales. "You're kidding."

"I'm not. It's halfway around the world, not to mention eight time zones over. I'm going to be really jet-lagged."

You realize he is right. Due to the severity of the situation, it is inadvisable for you to take a day to rest.

Seeing your enthusiasm fade, Sam decides to cheer you up, "It won't be that bad; just think: we'll be in Japan. You ever been to Japan?"

"Once or twice," you admit. "I've only been to Kyoto though. Have you?"

"Can't say that I have," he tells you. "I've only really been to Central and South American countries, and just a few European ones and India, of course. Oh, and Madagascar."

"Okay," you say. "I kind of thought you'd have been to more countries than that."

"I'm getting around to all of them," he shrugs. "Working with Victor, I know I'll get to see them all eventually. What countries have you been to?"

"Just a handful," you confess. "Nothing really out of my comfort zone."

"Comfort zone being…?"

"Language barrier."

He understands, "Yeah, that can be hard, but knowing one or more of the Romance languages help. You can almost speak to an Italian person in Spanish."

"Almost," you repeat. The two of you get outside and you see Sam take out another cigarette. "Didn't you just smoke one?"

"Yeah," he answers simply. "Kind of a habit I picked up in prison."

"Right, prison," you mumble, slightly annoyed that he is referencing something that he does not want to talk about.

Sensing your annoyance, he changes the subject, "You know how you're getting to the airport?"

"Yeah," you reply. "I'll just take a cab—that's okay, right?"

"Of course it is," he laughs. "It's not like we're going to some drug dealer's personal airstrip."

"Okay, just had to be sure. Some of the people I've worked with in the past were really paranoid."

"I can imagine."

The two of you say your goodbyes before leaving. When you get home, you prepare and eat dinner, then quickly do more research on the painting. You had taken the copy of the painting as well as the Kamakura Shogunate book home to get as much work done as possible.

After combing through the internet and finding nothing on paintings of Minamoto Yoritomo, you look through the book, in hopes of finding some other lead. When you get to a section about art during the time period, you see a painting of a landscape very similar to the painting of Minamoto. You look for the name of the artist: Kimura Naoki.

You search up the name over the internet and find an online encyclopedia page on him. He was an artist that was active around the time when Minamoto died, and had very little work associated with him due to being lost to time. You look at what work was available to view, and the art style was strikingly similar to the one you already have; you had found the artist.

After looking through his artwork, you find a narrative scroll that seems to have been cut off. The work is entitled "Yoritomo's Legacy" and was originally found in two pieces, which were pieced together by experts from the Brodeur Gallery in the Yamate district of Yokohama, where the work hangs to this day.

You look at the scroll in the highest resolution image you can find, and see that it is definitely a continuation of the painting that you already know of. However, you see that there is still something missing from the other end.

This was what you are looking for! The scroll must give clues to the whereabouts of Minamoto's Katana. You are convinced everyone will be impressed, including Sam. You print out all the information and get it ready for you to take with you when you leave the next morning. You also pack your bags so that all you need to do is grab your stuff when the cab arrives. You go to sleep despite all the excitement you are feeling.

The next morning you arrive at the airport and have no trouble finding Sully. He is smoking a cigar in front of a small hangar.

"Hey, you're here early," he greets you.

"Well I'm excited," you tell him honestly. "I found a lead on the painting."

He takes the cigar out of his mouth. "Did you now?"

"Yeah, there's a painting in Yamahama—at least that's what I think it's called—and—"

"Whoa, whoa, hold your horses," he tries calming you down. "Why don't we wait for the rest of our group to join us before you go into any more detail."

"Right," you agree. It is a lot of information, it will be much easier to explain to everyone at all once.

Not long afterwards Nadine arrives. "Sam isn't here yet?"

"He'll be here," Sully assures her. "When I give him a time and place, he's always here on time."

Sam arrives at the mention of his name. "We're all here?"

"We are now." Sully finishes his cigar. "Come on, let's get going."

"So, is this going to be a straight shoot to Japan?" You wonder.

"I'll probably have to refuel somewhere in the middle-east," he says. "It'll give us a chance to stretch our legs."

"And have a smoke," Sam adds.

You clearly have underestimated how much Sam enjoys smoking.

The three of you enter the hangar and you see Sully's plane for the first time. It is a cargo plane, looking like it can land on either land or sea. There looks to be plenty of room for cargo, but not much for people.

Sully is the first to climb inside. Sam is about to follow, but allows Nadine to enter before him.

"I suppose you'll be calling shotgun," he says to her.

"No, you can ride in the front," she replies.

This comes as a shock to Sam. He looks between you and her before putting his hands up in a gesture of surrender and climbing into the plane. You climb into the plane after him. You see Sam climb into the copilot seat, talking to Sully who was already strapped in. Nadine takes a seat on the wall to the right of the cockpit door. There is another seat to the left, so you take it.

"Strap yourselves in," Sully advises as he starts the plane's engine.

Everyone is silent, except for Sully who is requesting clearance to take off from the control tower, as the plane exits the hangar and starts taxing down a small runway. After a few minutes, you are in the air, and everyone is still quiet—it is starting to bother you now.

You feel that you should be the one to say something, so you clear your throat to start speaking, "So I found a lead on the painting."

"Did you?" Nadine sounds very interested.

You nod as you take out the material you printed out and showed it to the rest of the team. You explain everything you found the night before, in as much detail as possible.

"The Brodeur Galley," Sully says. "That name doesn't sound Asian in the slightest."

Sam looks at a picture of the gallery itself. "And this architecture, it looks like early twentieth century French design."

"This is the Yamate district, is it not?" Nadine asks. When you confirm it, she continues, "If I'm not mistaken that was a district meant for foreigners shortly after Japan opened their ports to foreign countries."

"Never thought I'd hear a historical anecdote coming out of your mouth," Sam praises her, impressed.

You feel a slight pang of jealousy.

"Our client's family owns a house in the location," she explains. "He seemed very keen on explaining the history to us."

"Probably wanted to show off for you and Chloe," you surmise. "He doesn't get girls into bed by looks alone."

"Not that he has any," Nadine quips. "He probably bribes most of them to let him bed them."

The two of you laugh lightly at Marcel's expense. You are surprised to have a humorous exchange with the woman after the foul impression you had of her.

"Did you dig up anything about the gallery itself?" Sully asks.

"There's an article about it somewhere in the papers," you inform him. "I printed it just in case, I don't know if it has anything useful."

Sam goes through the papers and finds the article in question. It is a ten-year-old article about the gallery's grand opening. It originally belonged to a French diplomat in the 1920s; it was in his family until his grandson turned it into a gallery to showcase his family's art collection. It has ticket admissions for art viewings and holds various private events—mostly for charity.

As he looks through the article, he sees an event calendar for the gallery. "Hey, what was the name of the guy who owned that first painting?"

"Uematsu," Nadine informs him. "Why?"

"There's an event going on for him in two days."

"What!" She swipes the paper away to see what he is talking about.

According to the article, there is an event for the "Uematsu Foundation" that will be happening two days from now. There is no way that this can be a coincidence.

"You think Uematsu was the one that kidnapped Chloe?" You ask.

"More than likely," Nadine replies, standing up. "Our client must have tipped them off by asking for that painting. The must have been shadowing us ever since." All of a sudden, she punches the hull of the plane in pure frustration. "GODDAMN IT!"

"Whoa, calm down," Sam says knowing full well that it will be no use.

"'Calm down'?" She repeats incredulously, "We knew the Yakuza were onto us! And I wasn't able to protect her!" She continues punching the hull of the plane as she says this.

Sam does not know what to say, and neither do you. Nadine is clearly blaming herself for what happened to Chloe, but is it not as if you know either woman well enough to calm her down.

"Well punching a hole in my goddamn plane isn't going to do anything either!" Sully finally shouts at her. When she stops, he continues, "Now, Chloe isn't some helpless girl, she can take care of herself. We need to do our part so that she doesn't get killed by this Uematsu guy. Throwing a tantrum won't get us anywhere."

"I was not throwing a tantrum," she muttered quietly.

"That dent in the hull says otherwise," Sam quips.

Nadine looks at her handiwork and gives a heavy sigh, "I'm sorry." She sits down in a seat on the hull in front of you instead of returning to her original seat.

"Maybe we shouldn't talk shop right now," you say after a long silence. You put the papers away for now and take out a book to read.

You finish reading the book in about three hours; nothing happens in that time except for Sam occasionally walking up and down the plane's corridor, and Sully switching the plane to autopilot for a moment to stretch his legs as well. Nadine does not even get up, she simply sits in her seat, only taking a book out to read just after you finish your own book.

You sigh heavily, which does not go unnoticed by Sam, "Don't tell me that was your only book."

"No," you reply. "But I didn't bring many others."

"I told you it's going to be a twelve-hour flight," he reminds you.

"And we're not refueling for another three hours," Sully adds.

You give another sigh, you were hoping that some of your time would be occupied by talking with everyone else, but with Nadine's outburst, it became too awkward to talk. You are afraid to talk to Sam around her, you want to come off as professional as possible to her, especially after the first impression she gave. And you also did not want her to go off again.

This did not stop Sam from talking to you though, "So what are you looking forward to doing in Japan?"

"Besides our job?" You ask.

"Besides our job," he repeats, slightly irritated.

It is clear that he does not want to talk about the job at the moment; he wants to talk about you. This makes your heart flutter, but you are afraid of alienating Nadine. Still, it is better than remaining silent.

"I'm actually looking forward to bathing in an onsen," you explain.

"Aren't those hot springs?" Sully wonders.

"Yeah, but some hotels have private ones you can bathe in," you go on. "They're really nice. I've been to a public one, it was mixed gender so…that was an experience."

"'Mixed gender'? They have those?" Sam asked, shocked.

"Some of them require bathing suits…the one I went to didn't."

You hear Sully chuckle while Sam's mouth is agape. You can only imagine what is going through his mind right now. Considering the context, you would not be surprised if his train of thought led him onto an inappropriate track.

"So…how was it?" He finally asks.

"Everyone was well-behaved if that was what you're thinking!" You berate him, "The Japanese are very respectful when it comes to stuff like that. Even the dirty old men kept to themselves."

Sully begins laughing. "But you knew they were dirty old men!"

"You should've seen the way they looked at the young women!" You laugh alongside him. "They were probably looking at me the same way but they made sure I never caught them looking at me." When your laughing subsides, you continue, "But they didn't do anything inappropriate." You give Sam a pointed look before adding, "And none of them were having sex."

"I wasn't going to ask that," he simply says, not giving away his true intentions. "But I've heard stories about bathhouses in other countries."

"They regulate stuff like that," you explain. "There's tons of onsens throughout Japan, if one isn't up to code then people go to the next one."

"He's talking about communal bathhouses," Nadine suddenly speaks up. "Those are different than onsens."

"How so?" Sam asks, intrigued by the fact that the other woman spoke up.

"Like Victor said, onsens are hot springs, you aren't actually supposed to bathe in the water," she informs them. "You're supposed to rinse and wash yourself thoroughly before getting into the water. What you're thinking of are communal bathhouses, where almost none of them have mixed gender."

"There are bathhouses that offer thermal baths in other countries," you tell her. "There was a nice Arab-themed one in Seville I went to while I was in college." You pause to think for a moment. "Come to think of it, it was more of a spa than a bathhouse."

"Yes, I believe those require you to wear swimsuits," she goes on. "I don't suppose you've been to an outdoor onsen."

"I never left Kyoto, so no." You shrug. Then a thought comes to mind, "Have you been to one?"

"No," she admits. "Chloe and I were planning on going to one after the job."

You understand, "I wanted to go to an outdoor one on my first trip there, but they told me that I would have to go all the way up to Hokkaido since there's a couple of natural ones over there."

She nods. "Because of all the seismic activity that goes on in that part."

"Are any of them active?" Sam wonders, somewhat worried.

"A few of them I believe," she explains. "But none have erupted in well over a hundred years. So I suppose it's due for an eruption sometime soon."

You know that she is simply messing with Sam. He is not amused in the slightest.

The four of you go on to talk up until what is pretty much the halfway point of the trip. You notice Sam trying to tread his ground carefully when it comes to talking to Nadine. It is clear that she does not like him much, but you wonder how that came to be. You also wonder if he will actually tell you. When you make an off comment about seeing Japanese snow monkeys in Hokkaido, she corrects you.

"Actually, macaques don't live that far north," she says, referring to them by their "correct" name. "They only live as far north as the tip of Honshu."

You have to think for a moment. "Isn't that just south of Hokkaido? Why don't any live on Hokkaido?"

"They aren't exclusive to cold weather," she informs you. "They mostly live in forests due to the fact that they mostly eat greens and insects."

"Oh," is all you can say. "They're call snow monkeys, I thought they preferred cold weather."

"They are the most northern-living primate in the world," she adds. "No other type of primate lives in colder environments."

You are genuinely intrigued. You wonder if Nadine is some sort of animal expert.

Finally, you hear Sully request landing clearance. At first, they are speaking a language that you cannot identify, but eventually an English-speaking person starts speaking over the radio. Sully is given landing clearance and he begins his descent.

When he finishes landing, everyone is eager to set foot on land for the first time in six hours. Jetlag seems to set in as it is roughly the early evening here and your body is adjusted to the time zone you left, thinking that it's midafternoon. Sully goes to try and talk to someone to get his plane refueled. Nadine goes onto her phone to presumably talk to Marcel while Sam smokes a cigarette near the plane. You stay near him since he is the only one who is not busy. The airport itself looks a bit on the shady side, with paint peeling off the sides of the hangars, and various cargo planes carrying suspicious goods. You wonder if Sully landed here because he has a contact here.

You are about to say something when your stomach audibly growls. You hope that Sam did not hear that, but your hopes are dashed relatively quickly.

"You hungry?" He asks casually.

"Yeah," you confess. "You think we can get something to eat while we're here?"

"We should," he says. "It's another six hours to Japan. Not sure if Nadine would wanna eat."

"She's probably hungry too," you reason.

"Yeah, but with that event coming up, we won't have much time to relax."

He is right; by the time you reach Japan, it will be early the next morning. You will have to spend that day and the next getting ready for the event, planning and preparing as much as you can. In fact, you still have not figured out if you are going to steal the scroll or not. Art heists take weeks to set up, with days being dedicated to casing the place, learning the ins and outs of the security system, training and securing the forgery. As of this moment, all you know is that some sort of Yakuza figurehead is holding an event at the gallery, presumably looking for the same painting you are. What you cannot wrap your head around is "why". Surely, they could have sent their own people in to steal the painting for themselves, or buy it outright. Surely, the owner of the gallery would have been "persuaded" by a Yakuza thug.

Then, Sully returns. "Well I'm getting our fuel, but I don't exactly trust these clowns with my plane."

"Well we have to eat," Sam tells him. "This one's starving."

"I'm not—" you are cut off by the sound of your stomach rumbling.

"You see?" He points out.

"Alright, I'll tell you what, I'll go into town to get us something," he offers.

"You have currency for this country?" You wonder.

"I'll manage," he assures you. "You wanna come with? I could use the company."

"And leave me here with her? Alone?" Sam questions indignantly.

"Think of it as bonding time," Sully taunts. "Besides, do you really want her to make another assumption about you sleeping with your personal assistant?"

Sam stumbles over his words before continuing, "I'd prefer that than having to deal with her by myself!"

Sully sighs as he realizes that he is not getting anywhere with him. "Fortunately, it's not your decision to make." He turns to you. "So how about it?"

Sam seems really distressed at the prospect of being alone with Nadine, making you curious about their relationship. Part of you is actually curious as to what will happen if the two are alone together. On the other hand, you are really hungry and cannot wait for Sully to leave and come back.

You have to think for a moment, but you finally decide. "I'll go with you." Sam let out a heavy sigh, causing you to comfort him, "Don't worry, we'll be back before you know it."

"Just hurry back," is all he says.

You follow Sully as he talks to a man in English. The man gives him a set of keys and some currency before heading off in another direction.

"A favor I called in," he tells you when you ask about the interaction. "His plane broke down in the middle of a smuggling run and asked me to complete it. He got paid in advance so he just gave me an IOU."

You are surprised. "And he actually honored it?"

He chuckles. "That's the secret to success in this line of business: you have to deal with people you can trust."

"I can only count the number of people I can trust on one hand," you say.

"Well, what I mean is conditional trust," he elaborates. "This guy, I can trust to keep his word, but in a firefight, I'm convinced he would save his own skin before looking out for mine."

You understand what he means, but your point still stands. "I don't really trust anyone I work with, and because of that, I've only been screwed over once and only by incompetence."

"I've been doing this longer than you, Sweetheart," he reminds you. "Believe me, you need connections. Hell, if you had connections of your own, that asshole who screwed you over never would have did so much damage to your reputation."

You cannot dispute his point.

The two of you walk out of the hangar where a couple of different cars are parked, creating a makeshift parking lot. Sully hits a button on the remote attached to the keys and an older-looking car close by beeps. The two of you climb inside with you taking the passenger's seat.

"There should be a bazaar close by," Sully says as he puts the keys in the ignition. "Hopefully they're still open."

"What country are we in anyway?" You finally ask.

"Turkmenistan," he replies. "The closest city is Türkmenabat." You do not know where either of those places are in the world. For a moment, you think that he means Turkey, but he quickly corrects you. "Turkey is back west, across the Caspian Sea. No, Turkmenistan used to be part of the Soviet Union, along with countries like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan."

You were only a child when the Soviet Union dissolved, so all you knew when that happened was that a lot more countries popped up surrounding Russia. It only confused you while you were in school.

You decide to drop the subject. "So how much food can we get with the money we have?"

"I got a good chunk of change, so probably a lot," he tells you. "I might just have enough to bring back a few souvenirs."

"Souvenirs for who?" You wonder.

"The one person I have in mind is Nate—Sam's brother, if he told you about him."

"I knew you were partners with a 'Nathan Drake' and it seemed weird that now you were partners with a 'Samuel Drake'. So of course I asked."

"Really." Sully is surprised. "He didn't tell you on his own, did he?"

"I kinda…forced it out of him," you admit. "I was so frustrated that he kept mentioning him, but never liked me asking about him."

He can only nod. "Yeah, I've noticed that about him ever since he got out of prison. Shortly after he got back in touch with Nate, we ended up going on a treasure hunt that took us to Madagascar. When Nate was out scouting the area, he would always try and make conversation with me—he never really liked me before, so this had definitely been a step up. Of course, when we asked him about his time in prison, he would always give a sort of vague answer, and then try and change the subject. I stopped asking when he tried to pass off a stupid pirate joke rather than continue."

"So what was he like before prison?" You wonder, "How long have you known him for?"

"I've known Sam almost as long as I've known Nate," he explains. "I met Nate when he was a teenager running around the streets of Columbia. He managed to interfere with a job I was working—to make a long story short, I saw potential in him and I took him in."

As interesting as it is to hear about Sam's brother, you are more interested in the man himself. "And Sam?"

"I'm getting there," he assures you. "Anyway, after a few months of working with me, Nate ends up in a Peruvian prison. Now, mind you, I wasn't as careful with my money back then as I am now, so I had to scrape together something to get him out. One day, as I'm doing this, this kid, no older than twenty, breaks into the place I'm staying at, asking for his brother. I'm telling him 'I have no idea what you're talking about.' Of course, he doesn't believe me and ends up trying to strongarm me into talking—little did he know that he was up against a former squid.

"So I subdue him, and I get him to tell me who he is. It turns out, his name was 'Samuel Drake' and he heard that his younger brother went off with me while he was locked up in Columbia. And he goes off, telling me that he had no right taking Nate and getting him involved in illegal activity. I turn around and I tell him that maybe if he was actually there for his brother, he wouldn't have gotten involved with someone like me."

And you thought your first impression of Nadine was bad. Now, it seems like Sam and Sully get along just fine, so you wonder if the relationship improved after that.

"No it did not," he answers. "Back then, I took Nate in because I thought he needed a better role model than Sam. Whenever Nate wasn't with Sam, he was with me, and Sam felt like he was being replaced." He lets out a sigh. "If I knew then, what would happen to him, I probably would have cut him a little more slack."

After hearing all this, you feel sympathy toward Sam. Sure, you cannot see the bigger picture, but it is apparent that he has a lot of baggage regarding his past and his brother. You finally understand why he does not want to talk about it, he is trying to put it behind him. Or, is he trying to ignore it?

You recall seeing him pour alcohol into his coffee a few days prior; you know from experience that most people drink alcohol to run away from their problems. Is he moving on, or is he running away?

These are questions for another time, for now you are curious about Sam and Sully's relationship.

"So what made him want to work with you?"

He thinks for a moment. "You know, I've never asked him. Maybe during that last job—the same one that took us to Madagascar—I finally earned his trust, or maybe he didn't have a reason to hate me anymore. What I do know is that he's someone I can depend on."

You feel like there is a huge gap in that story, but it can only be filled by Sam himself. Whether he will tell you or not, you do not know, but for now, you let the matter rest.

The trip to the bazaar is not long at all. Almost immediately after your conversation, the bazaar comes into sight. Sully parks the car alongside other cars nearby, and the two of you exit. You are surprised at how big the bazaar is, since it appears to be situated in the middle of nowhere.

"There are other small towns nearby," Sully explains when you comment on it. "This is a good marketplace for those towns."

You are impressed by his knowledge. "So you come here often?"

"In recent years, yeah," he says. "Come on, let's go find some food."

The two of you make your way through the bazaar in search for a food stall. You catch glimpses at the other stalls but you do not stop to look since you are pressed for time. After a while, you find a group of food stalls in the center, surrounded by tables.

While you are making your way over there, someone grabs your wrist, causing you to shout, and turn around, yanking your arm back. The perpetrator is a man holding a beautiful blue scarf. You cannot understand what he is saying, and you say as much, but he does not understand you either.

Sully comes between the two of you and says something along the lines of "Siz-ing-lis-che-gap-ley-ahr-ing-izmi?" Which you cannot understand at all.

The man, however, understands. "Oh, my sorrys." It is immediately made apparent that his English is awful. "I see beauty lady, I give her beauty scarf." He holds out the scarf for you. "Beauty scarf for beauty lady, yigrimi menat, but I give for one manat."

Sully is about to tell him no, but he sees you admiring the scarf. "Do you want it?"

You came to this marketplace for a specific reason, and you are worried about getting sidetracked. Then again, Sully did say that he had enough money for souvenirs. You always liked getting clothes from other countries.

"Yes," you decide.

Sully takes out the wad of currency that he was given by his contact earlier and gives the man some of it. After ensuring that it is legit he moves to give you the scarf. You stop him when you realize that he wants to put it in your hair. He says something about your hair being beautiful and attempts to put it on for you. It takes Sully stepping in for him to stop.

You tie the scarf around your neck and continue onto the food stalls. It looks as though the food they have is the last of the day, so you figure you might as well get as much of it as you can. The food itself is very similar to what you would find in Central Asian countries, such as pilaf (rice cooked in broth), manti (a type of dumpling) and even shurpa (meat and vegetable stew).

Sully, however, is more intent on buying food that will not make a mess in his plane. He opts for filled pies, like somsa and ishlykly and fried dumplings. He pretty much buys out the stall selling these foods, in order to keep your whole team fed until you reach Japan.

"What a pretty scarf," you hear a heavily accented female voice from behind you. You turn around and see an older woman carrying a jewelry box. "Surely you would want some nice jewels to match, no?" Her English is much better than the man's.

She opens the box for you to admire what is inside. You are looking at the jewelry inside as you realize the reason why she is showing these to you is because you succumbed to the sales pitch of the man before.

"I'm sorry, I have enough jewels," you tell the woman, trying to get her to go away.

"Perhaps something for your husband," she offers, referring to Sully. "I sell many antiques, perhaps he will be interested, no?"

She walks away before you can say anything. Instead, you warn Sully of the impending sales pitch.

"Yeah, I figured that would happen," he sighs. "Might as well see what she has. She might have something Nate would like."

The woman returns with another, older-looking, jewelry box, "These antiques were made by the Salyr tribe, very rare, very valuable; I give you good price."

While Sully is looking at her goods, you see other merchants getting some stuff together, in hopes to get a sale off the two of you. You grab the trays of food that you just bought in order to deter all of these salespeople. When he finally buys something, you tell him that the two of you need to be going.

"That's right," he agrees. He thanks the woman and takes some of the trays of food off your hands. "I don't normally fall for these sales pitches," he explains. "But I thought I'd put up with it to get something for Nate. Plus, it helps that it's not actually my money."

"So you and Nate are close?" You ask.

"Oh yeah," he replies. "Nate and I consider each other family, I was his best man at his wedding. I was all he had when Sam 'died'."

You were confused. "You mean the thirteen year prison sentence?" You continue when he confirms this, "What do you mean he 'died?’"

"He wasn't supposed to be there in the first place," Sully informs you. "He and Nate teamed up with Rafe Adler to bribe their way into the prison in the first place. It was supposed to be in and out, but Rafe went and killed their contact in the prison and it all went downhill from there. Sam was shot trying to escape and the warden went out of his way to make it look like Sam was killed during it."

"Wow," was all you can say. All the misfortunes of Sam's life just keep piling on. You wish for something good in his life, for his sake.

The two of you return to the car, load the trays up in the back seat and head back to the airport. Upon arrival, Sully's contact is there to collect his keys and the remainder of the cash. He looks at the scarf around your neck, then back at Sully, before giving a heavy sigh and walking away. You surmise that he is not happy about his money being spent on frivolous things. It is lucky for him that you did not go overboard.

You and Sully return to the plane and see Sam and Nadine talking, you even see the woman laugh. You are relieved to see them getting along, but somehow, you feel jealous.

"Good to see you didn't try killing him," Sully tells Nadine.

"No," is all she says. "Are we going to eat lunch first?"

"I just need to get something in my system before I take off," he assures her.

All of the trays are packed into the plane. The four of you eat out of one of the trays before taking off. When the time comes, you sit in your original seat and take out another one of your books. You are expecting Sam to sit in the co-pilot seat, but surprisingly, Nadine is the one to take it, while Sam sits in the seat along the hull she occupied earlier.

"You're not going to sit up front?" You ask.

"I wanted to sit back here with you," he replies.

You appreciate the gesture, but after everything you learned about him from Sully, you are unsure of what to say. Although, you are curious as to what he and Nadine were talking about earlier.

"So what were you and Nadine talking about?" You ask, seeing the woman glance back out of the corner of your eye.

"Oh, nothing serious," he assures you. "You know, small talk, trying to not piss her off."

You nod, unconvinced, which Sam quickly catches.

"You're not jealous, are you?" He teases.

Your face flushes red as you are caught off-guard by the question. "Jealous? Why? It's not like you're my boyfriend or anything."

"I could be." He winks.

"No," you react. "It's unprofessional."

You can only imagine the look on Sully's face during this. Why is Sam playing around like this?

"I dunno," Nadine speaks up. "There are some times where it's not completely unprofessional."

You are surprised to hear that from her. Of course, she always assumed that you and Sam had a thing for each other—you did first see her when you were returning from a "date" after all. But you got the notion that she did not approve of such behavior.

What _did_ she and Sam talk about earlier?

You are not going to get a straight answer out of him, but maybe, you might get one out of her.

Instead of continuing the conversation—if you could call it that—you stick your head in your book and begin reading. Everyone is quiet as takeoff procedures begin, in a few minutes you are all up in the air again, en route to Japan.

When you are in the air, Sam leans forward and whispers to you, "No really, are you jealous of Nadine? You don't have any reason to be."

"I'm not jealous," you whisper back.

It is the truth, for the most part. While it is true that you feel somewhat jealous when Sam and Nadine are talking—mostly because their relationship is unknown to you—you never did consider yourself a jealous person. But what do you really have to be jealous about anyway? Like you said before, Sam is not your boyfriend.

"Because, to be honest," he continues, "I'd much rather have you than her."

Your face flushes red. Although he had been dropping hints to his attraction previously, he never did tell you outright that he likes you. Hearing him confirm it puts yourself at ease. He probably already knows you like him back, after all, your attraction was apparent when you first met him just four short days ago.

Four days.

You let that sink in.

_Seven_ days ago, you were out of work, binging Netflix, eating microwave food and emptying your bank account with your last rent payment. You apply to one suspicious-looking job posting, now here you are, being whisked away to Japan, after making a pitstop in _Turkmenistan_ , a country you did not even know existed until now. It was all so sudden, you only just now have time to process it all. It is overwhelming, in a good way.

Then, you meet this man, who you seem to connect with more in _four days_ than some of your past lovers in _four months_. You got him to open up to you, a feat you could not achieve with a man you had previously spent a _year_ with. What makes Sam different?

Then, you realize, _the alcohol_. You had caught him with his proverbial pants down. Would he have opened up to you if you did not ask him if he were hungover that day? You wonder if you had said _anything else_ , would it change anything? Would you know so much about him? Would he be as interested in you as he is now?

The sound of fingers snapping brings you back to reality. You look to the source of the sound, Sam is looking at you curiously.

"You okay? You looked like you were in a whole ‘nother world," he says to you, a bit concerned.

"I'm just processing everything that's happened so far," you tell him honestly. "When I get a job, it's planned for at least a month in advance."

"Oh, I gotcha," he understands. "Being whisked away to a foreign country on a moment's notice can be disorienting. But it's not always like this."

"It's fine," you assure him, "I'll take 'whisked away on a moment's notice' than sitting in my apartment, in the stupid rut I found myself in."

Satisfied, Sam leaves you alone. He takes out a book of his own and starts reading it, occasionally glancing back at you. You continue reading your own book.

You think about the questions you were asking yourself earlier, and you decide that it does not matter what happens in the past. What matters is the here and now, looking back does not do you any good.

The next six hours pass quicker than the first. You alternate between reading your book, making small talk, eating a bit of the food you just got (which thankfully still tasted good cold) and taking micro-naps. You suppose Sully is getting tired when Nadine offers to pilot the plane some of the way while he gets some rest.

"No offense to you Nadine, but the last time someone flew my plane, he crashed it," he informs her. "This baby's too expensive for me to trust to someone else, even for a moment."

After giving several arguments, and Sully being too stubborn to budge, she just gives up.

Finally, you hear Sully requesting landing clearance. To your surprise, instead of hearing a Japanese voice, you hear a familiar-sounding Polish accent.

"You're coming in clear Mr. Sullivan, I have a runway set up just for you," Marcel's voice comes from the radio.

You assume that this is another small airport—most likely one with a better repute that Marcel himself was able to afford. That is one thing you can look forward to when working with the man—he always takes care of his people, as long as you can put up with his advances.

When the plane lands and taxis off the runway, everyone grabs their bags and starts exiting the plane. Sully decides to also take the one remaining tray of food you have in the plane. When you step off the plane, a man with a dirty blonde mop of hair with blue eyes comes to greet you with open arms.

" _Ohayougozaimasu!_ " Japanese sounds very weird when spoken in a Polish accent. "Welcome to Japan Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Drake!" Sully and Sam approach Marcel as he greets them. "I have all of your accommodations set up for you in Yokohama and a car ready to take you there."

Nadine clears her throat and brings Marcel's attention to you. "Marcel, this is—"

He does not need an introduction; he goes right up to you and hugs you as he greets you. The hug is not professional, nor is it welcome, so you do not return it, but he probably knows as much and did it anyway.

"It's been so long!" He declares, as he finally lets go, "Tell me, the rumors aren't true about you, are they?"

Rumors? He must mean the blacklisting for the botched job with the smudged painting. When you mention it, he has no idea what you're talking about. It turns out, your employer for that job had been saying something else about you.

"He said that you demanded more money and that you shot him!" Marcel informs you, "He has a limp and a cane and everything!"

You can only stare dumbfounded. Apparently, that employer went above and beyond to ensure you would not get hired again. Sully swears that he did not hear anything like that about you. At least now you know why you were not called for any other jobs. In hindsight, merely smudging a painting should not have been grounds for you never to be hired again.

"Regardless, I never believed it," Marcel says. "Come, we will discuss everything in my car."

You expected some kind of limo to be waiting for you, instead, it was a six-seater minivan. When asked about it, the playboy makes the obvious argument that a limo would draw unnecessary attention. The three of you place your bags in the trunk of the car and get into it, with Marcel taking the passenger seat, Sully and Nadine in the middle and you and Sam in the back.

"When Miss Ross told me about this 'art expert', I didn't expect it to be you," he tells you. "I am pleasantly surprised, and I will enjoy working with you again."

You nod, not wanting to verbally agree with him. You had worked with Marcel several times in the past, most of them being pleasant experiences—the one time it was not was a failed heist in Mexico which ended with you and two out of three of your partners in prison. He made up for it by flying you and your one of your partners out when you were up for parole, with the other one being ineligible for parole.

While Marcel had always been good to you, seeing him brought up some memories you would rather forget. You sharply inhale as you do your best to push these awful memories down, hopefully never to resurface.

"So Marcel, what about the job?" Sully asks.

"Yes, yes, forgive me," he apologizes. "I was able to secure an invite to the event."

He explains that the invitation includes a "plus one", meaning that two of you would have to go in. Nadine suggests that you should go, which you and Marcel wholeheartedly agree, since you have to case the place anyway.

"Then who's coming with me?" You wonder, "You, Marcel?"

"No, no," he shakes his head. "It would be suspicious for me to go after my interaction with Uematsu. No, I believe it should be either Mr. Sullivan or Mr. Drake."

"I'd be willing to go," Sam volunteers as soon as he hears his name. He almost jumps at the chance, you wonder if it is because you are going.

Sully, on the other hand, makes a disapproving sound, "That's not a good idea."

"Why not?"

"Your tattoos, Sam," he points out. "Tattoos in Japan are mostly associated with the Yakuza."

Sam gives the older man an incredulous look, "But Victor, _I'm white_."

Marcel looks back at him and studies him. You see Sam tense up, most likely feeling awkward.

"No, you won't do at all," he finally says. "I don't mean to offend, Mr. Drake, but even if we were to clean you up—so to speak—your…rough appearance would attract too much attention."

You blink at the playboy. "Did you just call him ugly?"

Marcel is horrified at the accusation. "I—no! Not at all…it—!"

"—Because it kind of sounds like you did," you interrupt him, "or at least you're thinking it."

"I do not think Mr. Drake is ugly!" He almost shouts at you, "That is such a harsh word, I do not think you should use it to describe people with it." He finally composes himself. "What I mean to say is that this is an event attended by businessmen, and Mr. Drake gives off the impression of…for lack of a better phrase, a convict."

You cannot argue with him there, when you first saw him, Sam did look like a convict; his thirteen-year stint in prison most likely contributed to that.

"No, Mr. Sullivan seems better suited for this situation," Marcel decides. "He is a businessman after all."

"You know, you could have just led with that," Sam tells him, obviously annoyed.

Embarrassed, the playboy shuts up and pulls out his phone. At this point, it is fair to say that Sam does not like Marcel at all.

You look out the window and see the sun rising over the horizon. You feel like you just pulled an all-nighter, with the sun rising and you having been up for twelve hours so far.

"Jet lag, right?" Sam says to you.

You nod and mumble out a response, feeling sleepy all of a sudden.

"Don't worry, there's time to rest before we get to work," Marcel assures you. "I can arrange for a car to pick you up at the hotel at one o'clock this afternoon."

The rest of the ride is uneventful. When you arrive at the hotel, Marcel goes with you to show you to your rooms. It turns out he has already checked in on the group's behalf, using his money to prevent questions from getting asked.

"I tried getting you all private rooms, but that would attract too much attention," he explains. When you arrive at the rooms, he hands the four of you keycards. "Women on the left, men on the right. The rooms are connected to each other, and they're prepaid already, so no room service and no minibar." Sam and Sully groan at the last statement. "When we get the katana, I will buy as many shots of sake as you want. I'll see you all in the afternoon."

"What a prick," Sam says when Marcel is out of earshot.

"'Tool' would be more accurate," you tell him. "But yeah, he doesn't get along with men that well."

"Probably explains when he sought out Chloe and I," Nadine guesses. "Still, he gives us what we need, and he's paying us well."

"Hey, I didn't notice him getting too 'friendly' with you," you realize.

"I saw to that after I gave him a black eye when we first met," she explains simply.

Your jaw drops. "It's that simple?! I should've done that a long time ago!" You hear Sam and Sully chuckle, which annoys you. "You might think it's funny but it's not! You don't know what it's like putting up with unwanted advances! It's annoying!"

"Then punch him in the face next time you see the guy!" Sam is all too happy to suggest, "I'll take pictures."

"If you don't shut it, then I'll give _you_ a black eye!" Nadine threatens furiously, which is enough to get him to stop.

You are too tired to put up with this. Although you knew the two men were not trying to make fun of you or anything, you still found their behavior, as well as Marcel's, annoying. It is not as if the playboy, crossed any lines in his flirtations, but him fawning over you can get really annoying, especially since you have already shown your disinterest in him.

You open the door to the room and trudge inside. The first thing you do is collapse onto the closest bed. You hear Nadine follow behind you, but you do not hear the door slam behind her, instead you hear it bounce off something.

"By the way," you hear Sully's voice, "my contact has information on Uematsu."

"Victor, can’t it wait until later?" Sam asks.

"It's four in the afternoon _yesterday_ over there," he shoots back. "There's no better time than now."

"Set it up here," Nadine suggests. "Judging by the way this one collapsed, I doubt she'd be willing to go into your room."

You cannot argue, you are very tired.

You hear rustling of bags as well as the sounds of doors opening and closing. You doze off for a bit but you are stirred by Sam after a while. Sully has set up a video call on his laptop with his contact on the desk near the window. Nadine is sitting in an armchair nearby, while Sam has elected to stand next to Sully. You move over to the other bed and sit down, giving you a halfway-decent view of the screen.

When the call starts you hear a woman's voice greet Sully, "Hey Sully, how's it going?"

"Elena?" Sam bends over to come into laptop camera’s view. "You're Victor's contact?"

"Yeah," she says, as if it is obvious, "I _was_ a reporter after all, gathering information is part of my job—well now it's Nate's part now."

He seems confused. "Yeah, but I thought you guys were 'strictly legal' now—you know, especially now that you have a kid."

At first, you were curious as to who Elena was to Sam, but it becomes obvious very quickly: she's Nathan's wife—Sam's sister-in-law.

"I don't see anything illegal about looking into the Yakuza," she reasons. "Besides, if there's anything I can do to keep you guys from getting killed, I'm willing to help. And with these guys, you're going to need all the help you can get."

"It's that bad, huh?" Sully wonders.

"It's 'dismembering people with a katana' bad," she informs him. "The Uematsu family is part of the Sumiyoshi Union, starting with Kichirou Uematsu, after his father-in-law's 'accidental' death."

The way she says "accidental" helps draw you to the conclusion that Uematsu killed his father-in-law to gain power. It does not surprise you, higher-ups in the mafia tend to be ruthless—it is how they got there, after all.

"Kichirou retired about five years ago," Elena continues. "His sons took over for him, and they've definitely earned their depraved reputation. One of their first acts was to kidnap the daughter of a rival family and torture her. I'll spare you the gory details, but it was bad."

The way she is talking about the torture makes you glad that she is not going into detail. Then, there is something that you notice.

"Wait, sons?" You repeat, confused. "Isn't it usually one figurehead?"

"Usually yes, but this…is a unique situation," she says. "People recall Kichirou having two sons—a set of twins. But, there's apparently only one in charge, with the other nowhere to be found. Some people think that they've been passing themselves off as one person…but there's no real evidence of this."

The more you think about it, the less sense it makes. Why would a pair of twins pass themselves off as one person? If anything, it would be detrimental to them; if one twin is in an important meeting with someone, then that person runs into the other twin, who has no idea what they are talking about, it would make them look bad. No, what most likely happened was that one twin killed the other for control.

"Is there anything you can tell us about Minamoto Yoritomo?" Nadine asks. "Our client asked for a photocopy of a painting before they kidnapped Chloe."

You can hear the worry in Elena's voice, "Chloe's been kidnapped?"

"What!" You hear a man's voice, you can see him quickly come into the picture, "Sully, why didn't you say anything?"

"Well, I couldn't give Elena all the details since we were on a tight schedule," Sully explains.

"You haven't seen these pictures, this Uematsu guy's worse than Lazarević!" The man practically cries out.

"Lazarević was just as bad Nate," Elena reminds him.

You had already guessed that the man was Nathan Drake, but hearing his name confirmed it for you. But the way he is going on about Chloe and Uematsu worries you. Last time you talked about him, Nadine dented the hull of Sully's plane, you are worried that she might break something in the room. It does not help that you will be sharing a room with her.

You have to divert the conversation. Nadine had asked an interesting question about Minamoto Yoritomo, which was overshadowed by the revelation that Chloe was kidnapped.

You decide to draw attention back to that question. "So, what about Minamoto Yoritomo?" Elena does not hear you, so Sully repeats the question to her. She has no idea who you are talking about.

"He's the founder of the Kamakura shogunate of Japan," Sam explains. "We're looking for his katana.” He turns to Sully. “Jesus, Victor for someone who likes to talk you sure didn't tell them anything."

"Like I said, we were on a tight schedule," Sully curtly tells him. "Between this, securing a refuel in Turkmenistan and takeoff clearance, I had my hands full."

"I couldn't find anything on Minamoto Yoritomo," Elena says. "But they do have a whole collection of antiques and paintings from the Kamakura period."

"Like what?" Nadine asks.

You can hear her sifting through papers before she speaks again, "There's paintings of Yoritomo himself, several katanas belonging to other significant families…there's even one allegedly belonging to Houjou Tokimasa."

"The first regent of the Kamakura shogunate?!" You blurt out.

"That's the one," she confirms.

"So what, they're historians of the Kamakura shogunate?" Sam questions.

"More like fanatics," Nate corrects him. "You have no idea how far they were willing to go to get these things, Sam."

"So what you're saying is…Chloe might already be dead," Nadine says grimly.

There is a dark silence among the group as you all consider the possibility that Uematsu might have already killed Chloe.

"No, no," Nate finally speaks up. "I _know_ Chloe, she wouldn't just lay down and die like that. She's probably found some way of making herself useful."

He is not saying that just to lighten the mood. You can tell in his voice that he truly believes what he is saying. It is then you realize how close these people are to each other; it makes you feel like an outsider.

"Anything else we should know about Uematsu?" Sully asks.

"No, I pretty much covered everything," Elena tells him. "I'll email you all my files just in case."

"Thanks Elena."

"No problem guys, stay safe, okay?"

With that, the call is ended. You drag yourself back over to the other bed, lay down and fall asleep again within minutes. You hear bits and pieces of conversation from the others, but you are too tired to piece it all together.

The shrill sound of the phone ringing disturbs you from your slumber. You throw the blanket over your head as a defensive response. When the ringing stops, you hear Nadine's voice. After a few words from her, you hear her hang up the phone.

"That was Marcel," she says to you. "He'll be here in an hour, we’d better get ready."

You peek your head out from under the covers to look at her. That is when you realize that you do not remember going under the covers before falling asleep.

"Sam tucked you in," Nadine informs you when you comment on it. "You were out like a light. How much sleep did you get?"

You have to think; you had been up pretty late when you were looking into the painting. Your excitement must have overtaken your fatigue that night. That excitement was dampened when Nadine made a dent in Sully's plane.

No.

It was not just Nadine, it was the harshness of reality setting in. In the past, the jobs were done so well that the possibility of failure or death for you or any of your partners never occurred to you—not even after Mexico. This situation is dire—someone's life is on the line—you need to remember that.

"You can shower first," Nadine offers as she sits up in her bed.

"You can go first if you want to," you suggest.

"No, I insist," she counters. "I'm afraid you'll fall back asleep while I'm in there."

You have to admit that is possible, considering you are still lying down. You sit up and do your best to wake yourself up. While you are slowly making your way out of bed, you see Nadine already up and exercising. You find thinking you should be more like that, up and out of bed within five minutes.

As you finally stand up, you find yourself asking, "Did Sam really tuck me in?"

"Yes," she replies without missing a beat. "He thought you'd be uncomfortable sleeping on top of the covers. He even asked me to take your shoes off."

"He didn't have to do that," you say.

"That's what I told him, but he was insistent upon it." Then, she paused before adding, "He thinks very highly of you."

You feel your cheeks flush as you hear this. "What makes you say that?"

"We happened to be talking about you back in the Middle East," she says.

You recall the comment she made after you said that Sam being your boyfriend is unprofessional; does Nadine _approve_ of you and Sam? When you first met, her tone when she accused Sam of "thinking with his dick" made her seem like a person who did not approve of such things. The fact that she might approve and may even encourage your relationship, changes your mind about her.

"Then again," she continues. "He also thinks highly about Chloe and he thinks… _something_ of me."

The only thing you can reply with is, "Why?"

She looks to you and immediately knows what you mean, "My reasons are my own."

Convinced you will not get anything else out of her, you grab your one change of clothes from your bag and go to the shower. Feeling the water splash on your skin helps wake you up. The warm shower reminds you that you want to visit an onsen, and you consider asking the front desk if they have one.

Then you realize that the hotel is western-inspired, they probably do not.

You groan to yourself; leave it to Marcel to book a hotel without an onsen. It is probably just as well, you might not even have time to bathe in one anyway until after the event.

Then you ask yourself: what is after the event? You were just informed about exactly how ruthless Uematsu is. Will the priority be the katana, or rescuing Chloe? You are not even sure if the two objectives are mutually exclusive or not.

Not wanting to waste too much time, you finish bathing and get dressed. When you leave the bathroom, Nadine goes in wordlessly. You stuff your dirty clothes back into your bag, with the exception of your scarf which you drape around your neck. You take out one of your books to read while you wait for Nadine when you hear a knock at the conjoining door. You answer it and you see that it is Sam, strangely dressed in the same clothes he wore earlier.

"You didn't shower yet?" You ask.

"Yeah, I just don't have another change of clothes," he answers. When you do nothing but blink at him, he continues, "I'd rather carry more practical items around. Besides, how many other changes of clothes did you pack?"

"Just this one," you admit.

He nods, affirming to himself that he won this argument. "Anyway, I just wanted to know if you slept all right."

"Yeah, as Nadine put it, I was out like a light," you tell him. Then, you giggle. "I guess you should know, you _did_ tuck me in after all."

"Oh, you know about that?" He plays it off like it is no big deal, you find it endearing. "I asked Nadine to do some of the more delicate work, like take off your shoes."

Perhaps Sam is embarrassed because his actions would come off as creepy to some people. But you do not mind, it is not as if he is a total stranger, after all. You cannot help but think back to Nadine's words, about how he thinks very highly of you. There is no doubt in your mind: Sam feels the same way about you as you do about him. However, you think back to Sully's warnings about Sam, how he is not a very "accessible" person, which makes you wonder if you should pursue a relationship after all. At this point, you consider yourself Sam and Sully's partner, so that is no longer an excuse for you. Still, you should not be focused on your love life, someone else's life is at stake.

"So, what do you think the event's going to be like?" You ask, striking up relevant conversation.

"How should I know?" His response is curt. He is probably still annoyed about Marcel's rejection.

"Well, you're probably going to be helping surveillance, or maybe being backup," you tell him, trying to cheer him up. "Behind the scenes is just as important as being in the action."

He seems to ignore your comments. "It's bullshit anyway, Victor would stand out just as much as I would in Japan anyway."

The truth is, you viewed Sully as the better candidate for the job. He is a charismatic businessman, and more likely to mingle well with the other guests at this event. Plus, considering the history of the Brodeur gallery, the other guests may be foreigners as well. Surely, Japanese businessmen know the Uematsu name well enough to stay as far away from the event as possible. But it is better not to tell him any of this anyway, it would not please him in the slightest.

Instead, your eyes moved to the tattoo on his neck—the one Sully said would make him stand out. They seemed to be low enough on his neck to be covered up with a collared shirt, like Sam himself suggested. Still, it is a very conspicuous place to put a tattoo; that and the bland blue ink told you that this was a prison tattoo.

In your experience, no one gets tattoos for no reason. They get one for symbolism, as a memento for a deceased loved one… _maybe_ if they were drunk one night and got it on a whim. But you can tell he got this one for a reason.

Birds in general symbolize freedom, which Sam no doubt desired during his unearned prison sentence. Being forced away from his only family, his life's calling, doing nothing but waste away, chain smoking for thirteen years, it must have taken a toll on him, a lesser man would be crushed.

"You've already figured out what it means, haven't you?" He asks after a while.

You nod as you touch the tattoo, "It must have been hard, being locked up for so long…"

"It wasn't so bad." You can tell it is an obvious lie. "I picked up a few new tricks, I got a guard smuggling books in for me for a while—"

"Sam," you stop him. "You don't have to lie to me."

He gives you a look that you cannot figure out, but you realize that he is not quite willing to open up to you—at least not willingly. You feel like, all this time, you have been forcing answers out of him and going behind his back to learn about his past.

No, it is not right.

If you want to learn more about Sam, he should be the one to open up, not for you to ask anyone else or try and force it out of him.

"Forget I said anything," you mutter, backing away from him.

You can feel the awkwardness fill up the room. You wish you have something else to say.

Then, Sam finally speaks up, "You—ah, think it'd be a problem out in public?" He rubs his neck, referring to his tattoos.

You shrug. "We're foreigners, tattoos or not, they won't like us out in public anyway."

"There's a lot of countries that don't like foreigners," he replies.

You are inclined to agree. "I had a classmate who was an exchange student back in college, she was there for language studies. She went to a fast food place with some other exchange students, and the workers there just ignored them, like they weren't even there."

He can only nod. "Yeah, can't say I've never experienced that."

"But tourist-friendly spots should be okay," you say. "But if we do visit an onsen, you have to cover up that tattoo."

"Do I have to cover all of them?" He asks.

"All of—? How many tattoos do you have?" You wonder.

"Maybe you'd like to find out sometime," Sam teases with a wink.

"Not anytime soon," you decline with some regret. "But, yeah, you have to cover up all your tattoos."

He sighs. "I can't lie, that kind of sucks, I like my tattoos."

"They are small, right?" You ask, "Then it should be easy to cover up."

He chuckles as he gives you a flirtatious look. "Well, I'm not going to say. You'll have to find out for yourself."

His taunting is beginning to annoy you. As much as you want to take him up on his offer, you have more important things to worry about.

You are given reprieve when Nadine emerges from the bathroom. "I only caught half that conversation, but we should be focusing on the job rather than the onsen."

"Good morning to you too," Sam greets her. "I know we have to focus on saving Chloe, but it wouldn't hurt to unwind a little."

She glares daggers at him. "We can 'unwind' when we know for a fact that Chloe is safe." If looks could kill, she definitely would have put him on life support.

"Okay, okay." He backs off. "So what's the plan when Mr. Moneybags comes around?"

"He's probably going to want to take Sully and I clothes shopping for the event," you guess. "The guy _loves_ seeing women model dresses, I wouldn't be surprised if he played with Barbie dolls as a kid."

"Pervert," Nadine quips.

"It's not actually in a sleazy type of way," you try defending Marcel. "It's more like he's checking out the dresses, you know, like fashion designers."

"Aren't most male fashion designers gay?" Sam wonders. "I mean, that's more of a stereotype but—"

"Of course he's not gay," Nadine rolls his eyes. "He's constantly sleeping with women, flirting with women, trying to impress women—"

"Actually," you stop her. "That…kinda sounds like what a man in the closet would do." Both Sam and Nadine give you this incredulous look, which makes you backpedal, "I mean, I'm not a psychologist or anything so what do I know?"

The two dismiss your statement, probably because they do not seem to care either way. Still, you had known Marcel for years at this point, you have to wonder: Is he gay?

The subject is dropped when Sully enters the room. "What are we talking about here?"

"Nothing important," Nadine tells him. "Marcel will be here soon."

"Yeah," he says. "He's sending a car for you and Sam to meet with his tech-guy, Murky Darrow."

"That can't be his real name," you balk.

"Of course not," he assures you. "I know him, he has good merchandise, but it all costs an arm and a leg."

"It's not like Marcel can't afford it," you point out.

He nods in agreement. "And Marcel will be taking us to pick out our outfits and get us measured to fit in them."

It seems you have guessed correctly; you will be going clothes shopping with Marcel.

"By the way," Sully adds. "This room was paid up for one night, we can't leave anything here…well maybe except for that tray of food that's gone bad by now."

You had forgotten all about that. It is just as well it has gone bad, Marcel would likely treat the group to some lunch when he arrives. After the awkward conversation in the car, earlier that morning, you wonder if lunch if a good idea at all.

It is not long before the four of you are called downstairs. Outside the hotel, Marcel is waiting with two smaller cars than the minivan he had that morning.

"I hope you all slept well," he greets you. "Miss Ross and Mr. Drake will take the back car, while you and Mr. Sullivan will come with me in the front car."

"I'll see you later," you tell Sam, who says his own farewells to you. He is not objecting to being stuck with Nadine again; you wonder why.

Sully opens the door for you and you climb in the backseat of the car, with him following. Marcel gets into the passenger's seat and speaks to the driver in Japanese.

"Are you two hungry? We can get lunch before we start," he says.

You slept on a full stomach, so you are not that hungry, but still, it is always good to eat right after you get up.

"I know a high class restaurant we can go to," Marcel continues. "Or we can just have something light at a café not far from the Motomachi district."

"Wait, what about Sam and Nadine?" You wonder, "Why didn't you offer them?"

"They will be meeting Mr. Darrow at my family's home in Yamate," he explains. "My sister will be there to cater to them. So, would you like to go to the restaurant, or a café?"

Sully tells him that he could go either, while you shrug. "I'm not really in the mood for any fancy dining."

"Okay, café it is," Marcel says. He turns to speak to the driver, once again in Japanese, then back to you, "Say, I've been meaning to ask you, did you get that scarf in the middle east?"

"Yeah," you reply, toying with it. Truth be told, you had almost forgotten about it until now.

"May I see it?"

You do not see why not, so you untie it and pass it over to him. He is inspecting the scarf for a while. You begin to get impatient. You audibly clear your throat to get his attention again.

"Ah, sorry," he passes the scarf back. "It is very nice, I think I might be able to get a dress to match it."

You tie the scarf back on your neck. "Are you sure? I feel like the style might clash with Japanese fashion."

"The scarf can be an accent, it won't clash at all," he assures you. "Besides, I'm thinking of a western-style dress for you—something that does not look like you bought the day before."

He has a point. The goal is to attract as little attention as possible. An obvious foreigner in a Japanese dress would tip Uematsu off.

"It sounds like you've thought this through," Sully points out. "It's almost unlike you Marcel."

You can see a pang of guilt hit Marcel, "I thought I should get more involved…after all, it's my fault that Miss Frazer got taken in the first place."

You always felt that Marcel blamed himself too much for anything that goes wrong in a job—after all, he barely does anything at all, let alone anything that would warrant blame. Although asking for a photocopy of a painting that would lead to a priceless artifact from a yakuza figurehead was definitely a bad play on his end.

When you arrive at the café, Marcel and the driver have an exchange that you cannot understand. When you and Sully get out of the car, you try to look for the café but it is nowhere to be seen.

"This way." The playboy leads the two of you down an alley and up a flight of stairs.

You hope he is not leading you to some shady criminal hangout. You hate places like those, despite needing to go to one every so often for a job.

Marcel rings a buzzer and the door opens to a woman in what seems to be a maid uniform, she greets him and invites the three of you inside. At first you think the woman wearing the uniform was a fluke, but when you get inside, you realize exactly what kind of place this is.

A maid café.

Marcel has brought you and Sully to a maid café.

You have heard about these, but have never been to one. You always assumed it was a place for men who had maid fetishes to go and ogle the poor waitresses; you never pegged Marcel to be one of those men. Sure, he is a playboy, but he can easily hire a prostitute and a maid costume to roleplay in—not go to one of these places.

"So, you're one of _those_ guys," Sully says, having the same thing on his mind.

"No, no!" He denies, "I come here with my brother-in-law all the time! It has good atmosphere and wonderful service."

You have to agree on the atmosphere, the place is trying to give a vibe of being a ballroom in a mansion, with servants waiting on you—despite the fact that this is a hole-in-the-wall café. The waitresses have good posture and seem to be very polite and formal, almost as if they are actual maids working for a rich and powerful family.

If only you were not the only female patron in the place.

All of the patrons here are men ranging from their early twenties to their early sixties, all eyeing the waitresses in one way or another. It is making you incredibly uncomfortable. You wonder if it is too late to go to the restaurant.

The woman who greeted you talks to Marcel, who—judging by his body language—seems to make a request. The woman nods, takes a few menus from the host stand next to you and leads you to a table near the corner. She places the menus on the tables and gestures for you to sit. You take a seat with your back to the rest of the café while the men take the remaining seats.

You are waited on by someone who seems to know Marcel well—he is most likely one of her regulars when he comes here with his brother-in-law. The two have an exchange in Japanese before Marcel asks for your drink orders; you and Sully give it to him and he translates it into Japanese for the waitress. She bows and leaves the three of you to look over the menu.

Marcel takes this time to speak to Sully, "So how have you been, Mr. Sullivan? I have heard quite a few stories about you in the last few years."

"Nothing bad I hope," Sully replies.

Marcel's face changes as he mutters something under his breath in Polish. You cannot understand the language, but it sounded something like "To-za-leh-zhi-od-def-in-ic-ji."

"Sorry, I didn't catch that," the older man tells him.

"Nothing, nothing," the playboy assures him, his demeanor returning to what it once was. It is painfully obvious that he is lying.

Not wanting to confront this, you change the subject, asking about the food, which Marcel is more than eager to explain.

Not too long after, the waitress returns with the drinks, ready to take the meal orders. Once she has the orders, she bows and leaves once again.

This time, Marcel turns the conversation to you, asking what you have been doing since your blacklisting. Not wanting to talk about the repetitiveness of the rut you had found yourself in during your month of unemployment, you ask about the employer that badmouthed you. You figure since he brought it up, you might as well talk about it.

"It is as I said," he explains. "He claims that you demanded more money after the job and shot him when he would not comply."

You have to wonder how much sense that makes. You remember that employer, he was the type of person who would crumble under pressure. If you had threaten to shoot him for double what he promised you, he would _triple_ your pay just to avoid getting shot. You also remember that he is a vindictive bastard who would shoot himself just to stop you from getting anymore work.

"I never believed it," Marcel assures you. "You are not the type of person to do that."

"Remember what I said before, in Turkmenistan?" Sully asks.

You recall him saying that if you had connections, you probably would not have been blacklisted by this one asshole. You begin to see that he is correct. In the past, you only trusted your partners to a certain point so you could avoid betrayal in a career where this sort of thing is common. After what Sully told you then, and hearing the real story now, you begin to think that maybe putting your trust in some people would not be bad at all.

The rest of your time in the café is unremarkable. Marcel moves onto small talk, as the three of you eat the appetizer and your lunch. When the meal is finished, you are eager to leave this café as well as its all-male patrons.

Marcel leads you and Sully out of the café and down the street. The three of you enter a shop with a few western-style dresses displayed in the window.

" _Irasshaimase_ ," you hear a woman's voice, as she steps out from behind a curtain behind the counter. "Ah, Lister _-san_ , Genevieve _-san_ has been expecting you," she says, to your surprise, in English. She ushers the three of you into the curtain. "She is waiting for you upstairs."

You walk up the stairs and see a hallway with many closed doors with signs written in Japanese. You have no idea where to go, but it seems that Marcel does, so you follow him. He knocks on one of the doors, hears a woman's voice and enters.

It is an office that reminds you of Sully and Sam's when you first went to interview for the job: an organized mess. However, rather than it being littered with historical books and documents, it's fashion magazines, mankins, sewing supplies and sketches of dresses. In the middle of it all was a blonde woman in a tracksuit with her hair tied back in a messy bun.

"There you are!" She speaks with a French accent, "You make me come in on my day off and you don't even arrive on time!" The woman is more annoyed than anything.

"I'm deeply sorry Axelle," he apologizes.

Wait, Axelle? The shopkeeper downstairs just referred to her as "Genevieve", perhaps that was her last name?

"Sorry won't cut it! I expect double compensation for this inconvenience!"

Marcel looks at his watch. "I'm only about fifteen minutes late, you don't think double is a little steep?"

"For you? _Non_ ," she says bluntly.

Then it hits you: if you were fifteen minutes late from eating at a café nearby, then eating in the restaurant would have made you even _later_! Marcel must feel really comfortable with this woman to potentially make her wait like that; perhaps an ex-girlfriend?

"We can haggle the price later," he says. "My friends need to get their measurements, and we need to pick out the dress so we can match the tuxedo accordingly—"

" _Tais-toi_!" She snaps at him, "You're acting like I've never done this before." She picks up the phone and talks to someone in Japanese and within a minute, another woman enters the room. Genevieve speaks to the woman in Japanese, but stops and turns to you and Sully, "My apologies, but your names…?" You and Sully introduce yourselves, and the woman picks up where she left off, mentioning Sully's name.

The woman bows and gestures for Sully to follow her, which he does fairly eagerly. You are left with Genevieve and Marcel.

"I was thinking of a dress to match the scarf—"

"You have no say in this," she barks at him. She stands up and walks over to you. "Come with me _mademoiselle_ , I will get you measured and help you pick out a dress."

She leads you out of the room and into another, with three full-length mirrors and several armless manikins wearing different dresses. She takes some measuring tape off the neck of one of the manikins, instructing you to take off any bulky clothes you have on, including your bag. You do so, and she begins getting your measurements. While the process is quickly for you, you wonder how long it is for Sully, since there are more measurements to consider for a tuxedo. Considering his eagerness, you wonder if he would mind a long, drawn out process.

" _Très bien_ ," Genevieve says when she is finished. "I was very close to guessing your measurements. A few simple adjustments will do for anything we decide on."

You nod in acknowledgement. You take this time to ask what is on your mind, "Um, if you don't mind me asking, who exactly are you?"

She gives an annoyed groan. "That imbecile told you nothing, did he? I am Genevieve, I own this boutique and I've designed almost every dress in here."

"But Marcel called you Axelle," you point out.

She rolls her eyes. "Of course he did. That is my real name, that I do not give out to clients. You'll be wise to call me 'Genevieve'."

"Okay. So do you know Marcel personally?"

"Oui, his sister and I are good friends," she replies. She pauses before adding, “His eldest, not the psychopath living in Yamate.”

“What?” you blurt out, completely confused.

She shakes her head. "Never mind, shall we get the fitting started or shall we continue 'Twenty Questions'?"

"Sorry," you apologize as you remove the rest of your clothes. Still, you are left wondering what she meant by “the psychopath living in Yamate”. As you take each article of clothing off, you hand it off to her.

When you hand her your scarf, she takes pause. "Where did you get this? It's beautiful."

"Turkmenistan," you reply.

"I would like to buy it from you," she says.

"It's not for sale," you firmly inform her.

"No, money cannot do this justice." She delicately places the scarf among your other clothes. "Wait here, I have something to trade for it. Please feel free to try on one of the dresses."

She quickly leaves the room. When you are finished undressing, you immediately take one of the dresses on one of the manikins off to try on for yourself. Really, you were afraid of a man accidentally walking in on you wearing nothing but your underwear.

The dress is halfway on when Genevieve reenters the room. "Here, allow me to help." She zips up the dress for you and ensures that it is on correctly. "So, what do you think?"

The dress is a strapless green dress that hugs your waist down to your mid-thighs but hangs loose down to your ankles. It gives you just enough mobility, plus it looks very nice on you. Your only complaint is that the strapless design makes your collarbone look bare; you wonder if Genevieve has any jewelry for you to wear. Overall, you like it, the only alterations that need to be done is around the chest so that the dress will stay up without you holding onto it.

"It looks good on you," the woman observes. "But if I may…"

You turn and see a thin wooden box in her hands. She carefully and shows you its contents: a wooden folding fan. She opens the fan, revealing a painting of a woman in a forest, originating approximately from the Heian period. You take the fan in your hands to get a better look. It is well preserved, but it seems like the real deal—nearly a thousand-year-old Japanese folding fan.

"I thought you might like it," Genevieve says. "I know what type of people Marcel hangs out with."

"Where did you get it?" You wonder.

"You can call it a 'gift' from one of Marcel's other accomplices," she explains. "It is obviously stolen, so I cannot display it. But you do not mind, no?"

"Not really," you admit.

It is not as if you are going to open your own gallery to display your stolen artwork in. But you do like the fan. It's authenticity would definitely make it worth something if you fall on hard times, if to ever comes to that. Still, the scarf is practically a gift from Sully, but would he take it personally if you traded it away?

"So, the fan for the scarf," Genevieve offers you. "Do we have a deal?"


	2. A Fair Trade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, going down memory lane with this choice. This was the choice where I had (and still do) a high suspicion that someone trolled and voted ten extra times. IIRC, the sudden ten-vote surge I saw never happened again, so there's a chance that one of the main failings of the last story was because of some troll. Let's hope that doesn't happen again.
> 
> Enjoy!

Out and About  
**A Fair Trade**

After careful consideration, you finally make a decision, "Yes."

"Oh _merci_!" She gratefully takes the scarf from the pile of clothes. "I love clothing from different countries—hence why I am a Frenchwoman living in Japan. But I don't travel as much as I should." She loosely ties the scarf around her neck, and admires herself in the mirror for a moment before she regains composure. "Now, back to business."

You try on the other dresses, which were all nice, but you decide on the green dress you tried on first. You put this dress back on and Genevieve uses safety pins for the alterations. You also ask if she has any jewelry for you to wear with the dress. She says that she does not have any, but that you should ask Marcel's sister who you would inevitably meet. When everything is finished, you change back into your regular clothes.

"I will have your dress delivered to Marcel tomorrow afternoon," she informs you.

Then, it occurs to you: what are you going to be doing tonight? The hotel was only paid for last night into this afternoon, so where will you be staying?

"I suppose that is it," Genevieve’s voice pulls you out of your thoughts. She opens the door. "Please go into the second door on your left while I… _negotiate_ with Marcel." Judging by the way she says this, she is not looking forward to the negotiations.

You thank Genevieve and go through the door. You find yourself in a waiting room, with only one other person in there with you—a young man playing a game system. He is too engrossed into his game to notice you, but you do not mind in the slightest since it is not likely that he speaks English. You sit down and take out a book to read.

After a while, you wonder what is taking Sully so long; he was only getting measured, surely, he would have finished first. A long while has passed, another woman has called for the other man in the room, leaving you alone. Now, you wonder what is taking Marcel and Genevieve so long. Usually, Marcel is willing to pay whatever the asking price is, so it should not take this long for any negotiations—unless Genevieve is being unreasonable. Then again, Genevieve struck you as a reasonable business woman, so it does not make sense.

That is when Sully finally enters the room, and you notice immediately that he is in a _very_ good mood. "Why are you so happy?"

"There's plenty of things to be happy about, Sweetheart," is all he says to you.

"But all you did was get measured and…" Then, it occurs to you why he took so long—and perhaps why Genevieve and Marcel are taking so long as well, "No. Y-you didn't!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." He turns away.

"Oh come on, I know exactly what went down!" You tell him, "Genevieve left the room for a few minutes, that's plenty of time for you to ask for her to stall Marcel."

"For your information, it was Sachiko who asked her, not me," he clarifies.

You assume this "Sachiko" was the name of the woman. "So, what, she came onto you?"

He shrugs. "Well, one thing led to another and—"

"Never mind," you interrupt. "I don't want to hear it. But if Sam and I end up hooking up by the end of this job, I don't want to hear anything from you!"

You are surprised by what you have just said. You are not the type to just hook up with men—even if Sam is no longer a stranger to you—you just prefer a relationship. But after your realization back in the hotel room, you wonder if it is even possible.

"What happened to 'not making it personal with your employers'?" Sully wonders.

"Hooking up isn't personal," you point out. "At least, it's not supposed to be. And besides! You two aren't my employers on this job—we're partners!"

"That's a lot of loopholes, are you sure you didn't study to be a lawyer?" He asks playfully.

You shake your head at the comment. "Besides, what we agreed on was that you get to say 'I told you so' after a failed relationship. Hooking up isn't a relationship."

"But hooking up isn't what you want," he tells you.

He has read you like a book, you turn away. "Yeah, but I've been selfish, trying to pry all this personal information out of him…he doesn't know a thing about me."

Then, you hear Marcel clear his throat. When had he entered the room?

"I apologize for the wait," he says. "For some reason, Axelle wanted to hold me up. But the car is here and ready to go."

"Go where?" You ask as you put your book away.

"To my family's home in Yamate," he informs you.

When he says this, you realize that you will probably get to meet Marcel’s sister—the “psychopath in Yamate” as Genevieve put it.

You and Sully follow him downstairs, bidding farewell to the woman watching the storefront, who is now accompanied by the woman who measured Sully.

" _Sayounara_ Victor- _kun_ ," you hear her say smoothly.

Sully says something back to her in Japanese, causing you to sigh in embarrassment. There is a time and place for everything, and you have to be honest, public sex is just inappropriate.

The car is different from the one earlier—you wonder if they all belong to Marcel or if he's just calling a bunch of taxis. The car ride over is uneventful enough, with Marcel engaging Sully in small talk.

At one point Marcel looks at you a bit too intently. When you ask why he is staring, he points out that you are no longer wearing your scarf.

"D-did you give it to Axelle?" He asks interrogatively.

"Y-yes," you reply, unnerved by his tone.

"Why?" Marcel whines, doing almost a complete one-eighty from his previous mood. "She's rich, she can afford to go to whatever country you got it from and get one of her own."

"I didn't just give it to her," you defend yourself, "We traded."

You go into your bag and fetch the box that holds the fan. You give it to Sully—he was the one who bought the scarf after all.

He gingerly inspects the box and the fan inside. "Looks like the genuine article."

"You're not angry I traded it?" you ask.

"It's your scarf, why would I be mad?" Sully replied, handing the box back, giving a dry look at Marcel who takes the hint and stops talking.

It is a very short distance to Yamate, and you see all the western-inspired architecture of the houses. You hope that you get to take in at least some Japanese culture on this trip, as so far, you have only seen western-inspired culture…and the maid café.

The car enters the driveway of one of the houses as per Marcel's request. The three of you step out and see the fairly large Lister family home. A woman in a maid's uniform steps out of the front door to greet you all.

"Hello Marcel- _kun_ ," she greets him first. Then she turns to you and Sully and bows. "On behalf of Cleena- _sama_ and Kohaku- _kun_ , I welcome you to the Lister family home."

You cannot help but notice that she referred to one person with a more formal honorific—like the one the maids in the café used to refer to Marcel—and the other person with a familiar one—like the one Sachiko used for Sully. This tips you off to the fact that her relationship to these people is…a bit weird.

Marcel introduces you and Sully to her and introduces her as Momoko, the house maid.

"It is a pleasure to meet you," she says, bowing once more. "It is not often that Marcel- _kun_ brings visitors over. I believe your friends are in the basement."

"Oh, is Mr. Darrow still here?" Marcel asks.

"I am afraid you have just missed him," she informs him. "He did say to call him if you need anything else."

She then leads the three of you inside. There is a shoe cubby in the entrance hallway; Momoko instructs you and Sully to take off your shoes and place them in the cubby. You put yours next to what appears to be Sam's shoes. She then leads you downstairs, where you see Nadine, Sam…

…and an unfamiliar woman uncomfortably close to him.

Your face pales as your blood boils. The only thing stopping you from yelling at this woman is the fact that you and Sam are not actually together. Still, seeing another woman that close to him makes you feel somewhat violated—as if she is in _your_ territory.

"Cleena- _sama_ ," Momoko gets the woman's attention. She introduces you and Sully to her, and you make an attempt to fix your face—but you are sure Sam and Nadine got a good look at you.

"Good to meet you," she shakes hands with Sully first. "I'm Cleena Lister…well, technically Cleena Shimino, but technicalities are for lawyers."

The first thing you notice when she opens her mouth is her accent—it isn't Polish, like Marcel’s, in fact, it is a strong, unmistakable, Scottish accent. This raises several questions in your head.

You are also curious about what she said, that "technicalities are for lawyers". Sure, you have run with some shady people in the past, but none of whom ended up in the courtroom. Plus, you are still curious about Genevieve's "psychopath" comment. This makes you wonder who exactly Cleena is and what she does.

"Have you eaten lunch? If not, I can have our chef make you something," she offers.

You and Sully decline, and Marcel ushers her and Momoko out of the room so you can do business. When she is gone, everyone is staring at the playboy, looking for an explanation.

"I'm adopted," is all he says. "Now that we've acknowledged the elephant in the room," he gestures to the equipment on the table in the middle of the room, "I trust Mr. Darrow gave you everything."

"Yes," Nadine tells him. "He was very thorough."

"Good." Marcel walks over to a wall and pulls down a shade with an overhead map of the neighborhood taped onto it. "Now, the Brodeur Gallery is here—" he points to a building colored in red "—Miss Ross and Mr. Drake will be here—" he points to a building colored in blue not far from the red building "—The house will be unoccupied tomorrow night, allowing you two to safely stake out over there."

"Will it be a good enough vantage point?" Nadine wonders.

"Yes, there's two windows on the third floor that give you a good look at the gallery," he explains. "With your binoculars, you should be able to look directly into some of the windows, especially on the second floor. Now because you can't look too far into the building, I recommend staying in constant contact with each other at all times."

"This isn't our first job you know," Sam berates him.

"I'm sure it isn't," Marcel replies honestly. "From what I'm told, the outside patrols remain the same each and every night. Take the time to study them tomorrow." He turns to you and Sully. "As for you two, Mr. Darrow has provided us with something very useful. Miss Ross, if you could explain it."

She picks up what looks like a large plug with two antenna attached to it. "This is a signal hijacker, plug it in and we can intercept a signal of almost anything."

"Anything? Like wi-fi _and_ cell phones?" You ask.

"Anything with a two-hundred meter radius," she replies.

"Oh my God," you gasp, "Governments would kill to get their hands on something like this."

Marcel rolls his eyes. "Governments don't need technology like this, they already have the means to spy on you." He takes the hijacker from Nadine. "What you will be doing is plugging this into any available outlet you can find."

"How do you suppose we do that?" Sully wonders, "It would look suspicious if a guest was plugging something into the wall."

"Say you're plugging your phone in," he brushes it off. "You're the ones going in, you should think about that."

That is the Marcel you have grown accustomed to; always behind the scenes, leaving the problem-solving to the ones doing the _actual_ work.

"That being said," he continues, "I suggest that the two of you pose as an actual couple, rather than man and escort."

"What's the difference?" You have to ask.

"To put it simply, if you were Mr. Sullivan's wife, rather than someone he paid to accompany him, it would make more sense for him to let you out of his sight," Marcel explains.

Sully understands. "So if she were to go off on her own, it wouldn't be as suspicious."

"I guess that's right," you agree. "I can look for the painting while Sully mingles."

Marcel seems satisfied. "Good. I'll have a car pick up Miss Ross and Mr. Drake to take them to the stake-out location, and I'll have another car sent for you afterwards. Any objections?" No one seems to have any.

Before he can continue, you hear a male voice say something in Japanese. A man comes down the stairs wearing business casual clothing, with his sleeves rolled up, revealing detailed sleeve tattoos on both of his arms.

He is a member of the yakuza.

Everyone tenses up when they realize this, except for Marcel, who seems to be somewhat familiar with him. "Everyone, this is my brother-in-law, Kohaku."

"That's Shimino to you," he glowers. "You guys are the treasure hunters?"

"What if we are?" Nadine steps forward, challenging him.

Kohaku sucks his teeth at her. "Just thought you should know something about Uematsu, he's been seen with other treasure hunters."

"Like who?" She practically jumps at the statement.

"How should I know?" He retorts, "All I know is that two of them are _gaijin_ : a man and a woman."

" _Gaijin_?" You repeat.

" _Gaijin_ ," he says it slower this time, as if you are a two-year-old. "Like you guys."

"Foreigners," Marcel clarifies. "Think _gringos_ in Spanish."

You understand the analogy. You just wish Kohaku would not treat you like a moron for not knowing.

"Do you know anything else about them?" Nadine presses.

"Should I?" He responds.

"Their names, what they look like?"

"Listen lady, I don't know what you want from me," he tells her with slight attitude. "I said, all I know is that two of them are _gaijin_ : a man and a woman. I don't know their names, faces, or where they keep their cash. I just thought I should let you know what you're up against because I'm a decent guy."

It is hard to take him at face value. You say nothing to him since you want him to leave. He does so after about a minute of uncomfortable silence.

"What a charming guy," Sam quips. "I can see what your sister sees in him."

You cannot help but feel a pang of anger when he mentions Cleena.

"He really is a decent guy once you get to know him," Marcel explains. "He and my sister have…a special arrangement in their marriage."

"He's sleeping with the maid, isn't he?" You blurt out, "I mean, she used a familiar honorific with him…plus he introduced you to that maid café, right?"

The playboy becomes flustered, muttering something to himself in Polish, before speaking to you again, "I guess nothing can get past a smart girl like you, huh?"

It is painfully obvious to anyone paying attention. If Kohaku is sleeping with his maid, then that would mean that Cleena is allowed to sleep around as well. The thought alone gets you furious, but you hold back your anger as much as you can.

"Anyway," Marcel walks over to a door and opens it. "You will be sleeping here tonight. I believe Cleena has some pajamas for you to change into."

You look into the room to see it has two bunk beds and one queen-sized bed; you wonder how the sleeping arrangements will be between the four of you. There is a bathroom connected to the room, so at least you will not need to go upstairs.

"I don't have any other plans for the night, so the house is free to roam at Cleena and Kohaku's permission," he says as he climbs back upstairs.

"Wait, so we're not allowed to leave?" You ask.

He breathes in sharply before answering, "No. I'm sorry but I don't want anything to happen to any of you."

When he leaves you guys alone, you turn to Nadine, "So you think one of those _gaijin_ with Uematsu is Chloe?"

She turns away. "I'm…hoping that's the case."

"It sure seems like it," Sully puts in. "This isn't the first time Chloe's been forced to work for some bastard against her will."

"You're talking about the Shambala deal," Nadine surmises.

"Yeah, with that one guy, Lazarabitch?" Sam adds, most likely incorrectly.

You doubt you are going to get the full story, so you tell them that you are going to explore the house and leave to do so. The first room you enter when you climb upstairs is a sort of living space, with a small table covered with a blanket in the center of the room—you believe this is called a kotatsu. There is also a TV and two armchairs and a large bookcase, where you see Marcel trying to pick something out. The room itself feels like a mishmash of Japanese culture and western influence—mostly thanks to the kotatsu.

Marcel senses your presence and turns around. "Oh, I thought you'd be downstairs for a little while longer."

"I just thought I'd take a look around," you say.

It was a half-truth. Really, you just do not want to hear them talk about a story you doubt anyone was going to tell you.

"So," he begins. "It's Drake, isn't it?"

You blink in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"In Axelle's boutique, I heard you and Sullivan talk about 'hooking up' and 'being selfish'," he explains, "You were talking about Drake, weren't you?"

"What makes you think that?" You ask him, trying to dodge the question.

"He reminds me of Ken Voclain—" the mentioning of that name makes your legs go numb "—you know, your ex-boyfriend?"

"I happen to remember the names of my lovers," you retort, getting defensive. "Unlike you."

"No need to get bitter, I just thought you'd want to forget about him," he says simply.

"Yeah, thanks for reminding me," you sneer.

He backpedals, "Okay, I'm sorry. It's just…he reminds me of him is all. You know, as a less-attractive version of him."

"Don't compare him to Ken!" You exclaim, "He's nothing like him!"

"So he wouldn't jump bail and leave you to rot in some Mexican hellhole?" He asks honestly.

You know Marcel does not mean to, but he is bringing up some sour memories. You would prefer to forget them. Instead, you recall how Sam took the time to tuck you under the covers that morning. When you were with Ken, if the two of you fell asleep on the couch, you would wake up alone on the couch and find him in your bed by himself.

"Sam is nothing like Ken," you repeat with confidence.

"If you say so." He is unconvinced. "So you are interested in him."

After what you have just said, there is no denying it.

"That's fine," he says, "I won't get in the way, and I'll tell Cleena to back off."

"Why do you care?" You ask as he leaves the room.

He turns around to face you. "After everything we've been through, I like to think we're friends. You don't think so?"

Are you two friends; what do you tell him?

You have known Marcel for years at this point, and you have him to thank for getting out of said Mexican hellhole. Still, you have always found him annoying, especially with his advances. You have seen many sides of him, but you were unaware—until now—that there was this side to him, one that would be willing to help you like this, on a personal level.

You tell him with a slight smile, "We are. You've helped me out a lot on previous jobs, and if you know me well enough not to believe those lies about me, I guess I can say we're friends."

He smiles back at you. "Good, and friends help friends get laid. So I'll just have a little talk with Mr. Drake."

"I wouldn't if I were you," you stop him. "He doesn't like you very much."

"Oh, yeah," he says as if he were reminded of something. "After what I said in the car this morning, I really wouldn't blame him." He then yawns. "Speaking of this morning, I should probably take a nap, I've been awake for about twelve hours after all." You watch him go, but then you see him pause for a moment. "Hello Mr. Drake." You go pale—how much did he hear? "I hope my sister has been hospitable."

"Yeah, you can say that," he tells him. He enters the room when Marcel leaves. "So…"

"How much did you hear?" You ask, reluctant to hear the answer.

All he says is "Ken Voclain?"

It is enough to make you want to disappear. He just heard himself being compared to your ex-boyfriend, which is terrible for someone to hear.

"He's…someone I want to forget," you mutter, trying to ignore the memories of him.

"Leaving you in some hellhole in Mexico? I guess we're more alike than you think," he points out.

You remember Sully telling you that Sam was pretty much abandoned in that prison, but your situation was not like that.

"I dunno." You do not want to let on that you know so much.

He crosses his arms. "Try me."

You do not want to remember your experience in that Mexican prison, but you have to tell him something.

You keep the topic on the heist, "Well…I ended up in prison thanks to someone else's incompetence. Long story short, Ken got bail bonds and jumped bail."

He nods in understanding. "I jumped bail in Honduras once. Had to dodge a couple of bounty hunters for about a year after that. I know I'm never doing that again."

"Yeah, he ended up in the same prison as me, with his arms broken in two places," you inform him, trying to ignore all of your memories inside that dreadful place.

"That doesn't make sense," he points out.

"Itwasmixedpopulation," the words pour out of your mouth. "You know, men and women? Theyhavethoseyouknow."

Sam stares at you as he puts the pieces together. After a while, he asks, "How'd you get out of there?"

"I was put up for parole, along with another partner on that job, and Marcel flew us out," you tell him. "That being said, I'm not allowed back in Mexico."

"I'll bet," he says. "And Ken? What happened after he got dumped back in prison?"

"I never really saw him again," you admit. "Too busy…" You trail off as the painful memories flood back.

You keep your head above the proverbial water, but you get flashes of your time in there. The horrible smell, the cold grey walls, the leering of the male prisoners.

You think you must have started tearing up, because the next thing you know, Sam is holding you against his chest. This isn't like the hug Marcel had given you when you first arrived—this one is more like an embrace. It has been a long time since you have been held like this, the feeling is overwhelming and you end up breaking down and crying.

You have no idea how long this lasts. Eventually, your crying dwindles down to sniffling.

Sam holds you at arm's length to look at you. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," you croak. "I'm sorry, I—"

"No, no, I'm sorry." You can tell he feels a bit awkward—anyone would be if the person they were just talking to burst into tears.

"So…I guess we're both sorry," you say.

It has become another awkward moment with Sam. You wonder why it keeps coming to this.

Then, you realize you do not know why he is here in the first place. "Did you…follow me up here?"

"Yeah," he admits. "I saw your face when Cleana—or whatever—was coming onto me."

You turn away in embarrassment. "Uh…yeah…I don't know what got into me. I'm not the jealous type, or at least I don't think I am."

"I wouldn't really blame you," he says. "If you were my girlfriend, you'd have every right to be pissed off."

You wonder if something had just happened when you had gotten down to the basement, like if she kissed him or something. Perhaps he was simply referring to how close she had gotten. Then another thought crossed your mind— the “psychopath” comment that Genevieve had made—Sam and Nadine have spent a few hours here, maybe they can weight in. These are all questions you can ask Sam right now.

What do you ask about?

A. If he and Cleena had kissed.  
B. If he was simply referring to her closeness to him.  
C. Does he thinks Cleena is a "psychopath."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Poll Results**  
>   
>  So I combined chapters 15 and 16 together, eliminated the choice of Marcel asking our protagonist if they are friends or not. Honestly writing the protagonist and Marcel as friends is more interesting than her constantly being annoyed by him. If no one's on his side, then if just becomes sad.  
> As for this choice, I removed the choice about asking Nadine what she thought of the situation and replaced it with asking if Cleena was a psychopath. For this story, I'd like to focus more on Marcel's family, including Kohaku, who was voted as the favorite of the original characters I introduced. At the end of the last story, we got to know more about Kohaku, and hopefully this time, we can get to know him even more and get an ending where he (and everyone else) lives.  
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Low-Hanging Fruit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said a new chapter every two weeks, but for this first week, you get a treat! You know why? Because this chapter was finished from the first volume! Looking back at the notes for Chapter 17, this was the chapter where I suspected there was someone messing with the voting. This choice would've been the winner, but then out of nowhere choices for B and C were being voted on (particularly C as it was and still is an unpopular choice) and I had to close the poll early so I could write the chapter out properly. I'm confident that won't happen this time since I'm giving myself a full week to write.
> 
> Enough of that unpleasantness though. If anyone's interested I'm [active on twitter again.](https://twitter.com/Mars1040) I'm not posting anything fanfic-related though, but maybe if I get some followers, I'll post some updates and important info. I'd prefer it over spamming my own comment section, telling my readers about the new volume...I wish AO3 had a "follow author" function like FF.net does.
> 
> Thanks for the support! Enjoy!

Out and About  
**A. If he and Cleena had kissed**  
_**Low Hanging Fruit** _

"You and Cleena didn't kiss…did you?" You ask.

You are calm and collected. You are not going to flip out if the answer is yes.

"No," he answers confidently. "If Nadine wasn't there…well…I'm not sure where she would have stopped."

Your face pales, something tells you that what you saw in the basement was not their only interaction.

When asked about it, he pretty much confirms it. "Yeah, she was very forward when we first met. I mean, if I just wanted sex, I probably would've already went for it."

This gets you curious. "What do you mean 'if you just wanted sex'?"

"Ah, let me see if I can make it clearer for you," he says. " _Si tan solo quisiera sexo, lo habría dejado en claro_."

You roll your eyes. "I know what you mean…I just want to know…why you didn't go for it."

"Ah, let's see, what would I gain from sleeping with her?" He asks himself. "I'd get to have sex…probably for this one night, but I would have to give up my chances with a certain art thief who's playing a little hard to get."

You.

He is talking about you.

You can feel yourself getting flustered, so you back away from him, but he gently pursues you.

"W-why?" The words somehow leave your lips.

"You know what they say about low-hanging fruit," he tells you as you back into the bookcase in the room. "They're not as sweet as the ones you have to work for."

He places his hands on both sides of your head on the bookcase, leaning over you. You are reminded of Ken, but this time it does not bother you. Sam is attractive in the same ways Ken was—it is that convict look that appeals to you. Besides, the sex was just about all you missed from that relationship. Plus, there is something about Sam and his behavior that makes him several times better than Ken in this regard; perhaps it is because Sam actually wants you. The main thing that attracted you to Ken was the fact that you got work consistently—and as long as he was with you, so did he.

You are pulled out of your thoughts when you feel a certain… _warmth_ on your lips.

You are being kissed.

Sam is kissing you!

You would be lying if you said that you did not see this coming—after all you were getting aroused by the position you are in. Besides, this is what you have been wanting to happen, right?

You kiss him back, giving into your emotional desire.

You ignore the question popping up in your mind: What if someone sees you? Sully would probably give you the "pot calling the kettle black" speech. You are not quite sure what Nadine will say, but you doubt it will be any good. You have no idea how Cleena or anyone else in the household will react, but you know Marcel would say something to kill the mood.

You deepen the kiss, even despite the rational part of your brain telling you that this is a bad idea. You taste the mixed chemicals of cigarettes in his mouth, along with whatever he had for lunch—fish maybe?

Sam is the one to pull away, allowing the two of you to breathe. He leans his forehead against yours. Looking into his eyes, your thoughts finally catch up to you—all of them telling you that whatever comes next is going to be a bad idea.

"There's a large bed in the basement," he says.

Your stomach turns, but your face does not change.

"I'm sure Victor and Nadine wouldn't mind too much if we used it for a while."

Your mind is screaming "No! No!" but your libido is screaming "Yes! Yes!" leaving you confused as to what to say.

"What do you say?" He asks.

You feel so conflicted. While it is true that this is what you want, despite telling Sam otherwise, it just did not feel right. So you and Sam have sex right now, then what? He did not say anything about wanting a relationship with you, so maybe sex is all he wants. You want to pursue an actual relationship with him, but will he even be willing to be in one?

If you sleep with him right now, it's the end, but maybe this is all it will ever be. Sully was even warning you when you had first met. Still, there is something about Sam that you want to care for. Maybe, just maybe, if you try a little harder, something more can come of this.

Is this it? Is this all the effort you will put forth? Or will you push forward and try for something better?

Will you take Sam up on his offer?

A. Yes.  
B. No.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poll Resutlts:  
>   
> Short Chapter, but we got what we wanted...didn't we? You got the two choices here: throw down and call it a victory, or keep pursuing Sam and become more than just friends with benefits. Neither choice is a wrong answer, both of them have their advantages in terms of the protagonist's priorities. It all depends on what you guys want.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	4. "It's all about the chase!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy another weekly update rather than a two-week update!
> 
> Well the reason for this is because the vote was unanimous so I got to work on the chapter right away. Don't expect this next week, it's definitely going to be a two-week update.
> 
> Thanks for all the support! Enjoy!

Out and About  
**B. No.**  
_**"It's all about the chase!"** _

You compose yourself the best that you can.

"No."

Sam blinks. "What."

"You know what they say about the low-hanging fruit," you echo his words coyly, "They're not as sweet as the ones you have to work for."

One side of his mouth twitches upward. "Is that some kind of challenge?"

"You tell me." You duck under his arms and make your exit.

Your heart is pounding in excitement. You have just told Sam to pursue you romantically. Sully will no doubt be on your case about it but you do not care. It has been a long time since you have felt the thrill of being properly romanced.

"It looks like I have some competition," you hear a Scottish accent say.

You spin on your heels to find Cleena outside the entryway to the room, hidden from Sam's view. She has a sly look on her face.

"What did you see?" You ask, doing your best to hide your horror.

"Enough," she simply says. "Pursuing a man isn't any fun unless there's some competition, is there?"

Your jealous anger has returned. "Stay away from him!"

She seems to brush off your attitude. "Ah, don' take it personally lass, it's all good craic." She walks past you. "Or do you think you'll lose to me?"

She retreats upstairs before you can answer. That woman is infuriating! She sees your interest in Sam and she doubles down on her attraction to him!

Marcel comes around the corner in search of someone. "Where is Cleena? I thought I saw her come this way."

"Your bitch of a sister saw me and Sam together!" You practically shout at him, your rage unhinged.

Marcel is taken aback. "What? I thought that was what you wanted."

"She told me that she was going to keep going after Sam!" At the mention of his name, you are reminded that Sam could have heard everything, so you turn to check if he is still in the room. He is long gone.

The playboy furrows his brow in confusion. "That's strange, Cleena may be promiscuous, but she wouldn't go after someone who's unavailable."

You inhale sharply as your chest pangs in regret. "I turned Sam down for sex. I told him to pursue me instead."

His face lights up. "Oh I get it!" He grabs you by the shoulders, shaking you in excitement. "It's all about the chase! What fun is the chase if there's nothing at stake?"

You are annoyed at his attitude. You decide to remind him the reason why you and Sam are here in the first place, "Hey, what about Chloe?"

"Our chances of getting her back are only going to increase!" He tells you joyfully. "Cleena will be wanting to get closer to you and Sam and that means she will help us in the heist! I must fill her in on the finer points!"

Marcel bounces up the stairs as Nadine and Sully emerge from the basement.

"What's he so happy about?" Sully asks.

Your face flushes in embarrassment as you hesitantly inform them that "Cleena…is apparently going to help us with the heist."

Sully frowns while Nadine seems intrigued by the prospect.

"What's she going to help with?" He wonders.

"I think her skills would be plenty useful," Nadine says. "Cleena's a hitwoman."

Suddenly, Genevieve's psychopath comment makes sense. Your heart sinks as you realize that you may have put yourself and Sam in danger, she may be unhinged enough to kill the both of you if Sam chooses you instead of her. No—you're her brother's friend, she has to love and respect him enough to not kill you, right? Still, what surprises you is how unassuming she is, but you suppose that makes her a good assassin, at least when it comes to blending in.

"Did she say she was interested in helping?" Sully asks Nadine.

"No, actually," she realizes, "She didn't seem interested when Chloe and I were here either. Why help us now?"

You shrug as you refuse to tell them that you single-handedly made things complicated by inviting Sam to pursue you. You do not think you can tell either of them—they would never let you hear the end of it. You have to find a way to nip this situation in the bud before it gets out of hand. You have stolen million-dollar paintings from high security museums, what's a love triangle to you? You just need to gather information on Cleena.

You see Momoko come down the stairs with a pile of folded clothes in her hand. She sees the three of you gathered and approaches you.

"Cleena-sama has entrusted me with some clothes you may change into for the night," she explains, "I will leave them downstairs for you."

You all thank her as she descends to the basement. You find yourself thinking about her role in the household. She is most likely sleeping with Kohaku, which allows Cleena to do as she pleases with her sex life. Still, you wonder what exactly is her relationship to the two of them. Maybe if you get close to her, you can learn something to convince Cleena to stop pursuing Sam.

"Say, you know where Sam went?" Sully asks all of a sudden. "He said he was going to talk to you."

"We talked," you tell him, being vague on purpose, "Then I left the room."

"You talked about Cleena coming onto him, didn't you?" Nadine guesses.

"Yeah," you admit bashfully.

"You need to keep your temper in check if she's going to be helping us," she advises you. "Especially if Sam gives into her advances."

"What do you mean?!" You question indignantly.

"She means if Sam wants to sleep with her, he's going to," Sully clarifies. "You can't get your panties in a bunch for the choices he makes."

He has a point. Although Sam did tell you he prefers you, he might just give in and have sex with Cleena. You wince as you regret not taking Sam up on his offer.

"Even if he does," Nadine speaks up in a more comforting tone, "at the end of the day, sex is just sex, it doesn't have to mean anything to some people."

Sully nods in agreement. "Yeah, if Sam does end up in bed with Cleena, it doesn't mean he doesn't feel anything for you."

You smile up at him. "I thought you didn't approve."

"I still don’t," he adds, "but we need your head on straight if we're going to be working together."

For the first time since Sam kissed you, you are truly reminded that you have a job to do. You need to focus on the heist, not trying to get into another man's pants.

"Right, I'll focus," you assure them.

Momoko returns and bows to you all. "Cleena-sama would also like me to inform you that you are not allowed in the bedrooms upstairs or the dojo."

"Dojo?" Sully asks.

"Yes, it is where Kohaku-kun and Cleena-sama train," she explains brightly. "They are masters of many different forms of martial arts. In fact, Kohaku-kun was going to invite Drake-san to spar with him. I think I will go watch."

As Momoko starts to leave you say, "Wait, but you said we aren't allowed."

"No, you are not." She heads toward the back of the house without another word.

"Not very bright, is she?" Sully observes. "We've got a couple of hours to kill, what do you wanna do?"

"I'm going to see if I can try to convince Shimino to let me watch him and Drake spar," Nadine says as she makes her way toward the dojo.

You have three choices, you can hang out with Sully, join Nadine in trying to get into the dojo, or try and get information on Cleena from Momoko. Hanging out with Sully would get your mind off everything, especially Sam. Although, you are very interested in seeing Sam and Kohaku spar. And, of course, you could get Momoko to talk about Cleena so you can try and stop her from getting in the way of you and Sam.

What should you do?

A. Hang out with Sully  
B. Get into the dojo with Nadine  
C. Talk to Momoko

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poll Results:  
>   
> Oh no! Cleena is going to get between you and Sam! What do we do? Well it's obvious that she's only doing this for fun, but will it complicate things from here on out?
> 
> Well the good news is that you, as readers are armed with some information about Cleena to help her with her problems if you know what I mean. Check out the epilogue of the last volume and see if you can figure out how to get that information as the protagonist and use it to your advantage. If all goes well, you could get the guy AND make everyone happy in the end. Or prying too much would piss Cleena off and you could have an unfortunate...accident.
> 
> Or you could not think so hard and let things play out naturally, and maybe keep focused on the task at hand. You do have Chloe to worry about as well.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
